Abstract:

 A study was carried out both theoretically and experimentally on the solute diffusion in gel networks. The emphasis of this study was on the effect of network fluctuation. A model of diffusion was established based on the theory of dynamic disordered hopping, which was originally developed to describe the conduction of charged particles in polyelectrolyte. Temperature sensitive poly(n-isopropylacrylamide) gels were prepared and methyl blue was chosen as a solute for the diffusion experiment. Laser light scattering spectroscopy was used to study the dynamic behaviors of the gel network. Theoretical predictions agree qualitatively with the experimental results.

Key words: Gel, Density fluctuation, Percolation theory, Dynamic disordered hopping, Diffusion