High water-absorbent copolymers comprising acrylic acid (AA) and acrylamide (AM) were prepared in the presence of a crosslinking agent, monofunctional aldehyde, by a solution polymerization technique using a redox initiation system. Such copolymers have very high water absorbency and absorbing kinetics to the distilled water. The copolymer formed which absorbed about 900 g water/g dry copolymer was used to study the influence of sodium chloride on the absorption capacity at 24ЊC. The swelling of this copolymer was studied in alcohol/water mixtures of increasing alcohol content at 294, 304, and 314 K. The main transition for ethanol/water and methanol/ water mixtures is a rapid decrease of the retention capacity of the copolymer at 50-60 vol % ethanol and 55-65 vol % methanol, respectively. Swelling in distilled water at different temperatures ( T ) and the effect of solvent composition were also studied. Among the variables examined were initiator concentration, polymerization temperature, and amount of AM in the copolymer.

RuH 2 (PPh 3 ) 4 has been immobilized on swellable polyacrylate matrices to provide heterogenized carboxylate-derivatives. These swellable polymer supported ruthenium (II) complex catalysts have been used in the transfer hydrogenation of aldehydes. Hydrogen donors are formate salt, cyclohexanol, and benzyl alcohol.The catalysts exhibit good activity for hydrogen transfer reduction of aldehydes.

Aliphatic aldehydes were reduced to corresponding alcohols by transfer hydrogenation in the presence of Ru(II) complexes bound to swellable polymer matrices. Benzyl alcohol was used as hydrogen donor because of its strong hydrogen donor ability. The kinetics of the reaction has been measured between 100 and 140 • C. The results showed that reaction rate depended on the structure of aldehydes and concentrations of aldehyde. Also reaction rate depended on the concentration of hydrogen donor, and on the amount of catalyst. The reaction proceeded efficiently in halogenated hydrocarbon solvents. The metal leaching was different for different catalytic runs and it was most pronounced in the first catalytic run. The observed activation energy, E a = 18 ± 1 kcal/mol was obtained, suggested that process in predominantly chemically controlled reaction. A general reaction mechanism and rate equation have been proposed.