Superabsorbent polymer from waste polystyrene-graft-polyacrylamide was synthesized through emulsion polymerization technique using acrylamide as a monomer and potassium persulphate as an initiator in the presence of N,N-methylenebisacrylamide (NMBA) as a crosslinking agent. The effects of acrylamide loading was investigated to obtain the optimum condition that shows the best swelling capacity in three different aqueous medium; distilled water, saline solution and urea solution. Superabsorbent hydrogel were characterized by Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and electron scanning microscopy (SEM). Swelling test showed optimum absorbencies for distilled water, saline and urea solution were 1230 wt%, 1160 wt% and 440 wt% from their dry weight, respectively, recorded at ratio 1:10 of waste polystyrene to acrylamide. Meanwhile, the IR Spectroscopy proves that the grafting process between acrylamide and waste polystyrene was occurred in the hydrogel. Thermal degradation of the hydrogel started at 350 °C and the existence of porous unit can be observed in SEM micrographs.

The effect of different carbonizing agents; ethylene glycol, glycerol, and pentaerythritol to the char formation were studied in this research. After burning process, formulation with ethylene glycol, glycerol, and pentaerythritol showed chars thickness of 10 mm, 32 mm, and 45 mm. The chars’ strength at peak force was recorded at 3.20 N, 7.75 N, and 9.48 N while the burning rate of each sample were 5.23 x 10-4 mm/s, 4.20 x10-4 mm/s, and 6.24 x10-4 mm/s respectively. Formulation with glycerol as carbonizing agent showed the lowest burning rate as compared to the other formulations. Additional formulation with glycidyl silane as coupling agent in glycerol formulation was also studied. The formation of chemical bonding between silane, glycerol, and epoxy glycerol was confirmed by Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) absorption peak at 767.25 cm-1. The burning rate was 1.44 x 10-5 mm/s after silane treatment. Thermal degradation of the silane-treated resin started at 220°C as measured by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA).