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Superabsorbents hydrogel nanocomposites based on starch-g-poly(sodium acrylate) and cellulose nanowhiskers (CNWs) were synthesized. A set of experiments was performed to evaluate the influence of some factors such as NaAc/starch mass ratio, crosslinker, and nanowhiskers amount in the swelling capacity and swelling kinetics. Increasing the NaAc/starch mass ratio up to 7 leads to an increase in the water uptake at a maximum value, however, higher ratios decreased that value due to the increase of crosslinking points. Similarly, the incorporation of CNWs up to 10 wt% provided an improvement in the swelling due to the hydrophilic groups from cellobiose units. Further, the incorporation of CNWs diminishes the water uptake. Besides, the CNWs improved the mechanical properties. SEM images showed that CNWs increase the average porous size of composites. The composites presented good responsive behavior in relation to pH and salt presence allowing those materials suitable for many potential applications.

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The development of superabsorbent hydrogels (SHs) is a very important issue in both academic and industrial fields because of their applications in several technologies. The impressive number of publications dealing with SH confirms this statement: a quick search in the ISI (Web of Science) database under the words superabsorbent hydrogels revealed more than 600 articles published, with about 80% of those published in last decade. Current studies on the development of SHs have focused on the formulation of highly functional materials with enhanced properties for suitable applications in different fields. In light of this, the incorporation of microsized or nanosized materials in SH formulations has been explored as a very attractive strategy for tailoring desired properties. In this review, we discuss relevant aspects of the current knowledge of SHs and nanocomposite polymer hydrogels, mainly those based on chitin and cellulose nanocrystals (fibers and/or whiskers), bringing to light some structure-property relationships and future trends.

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