The characteristics of swelling pressure for superabsorbent polymer and soil mixtures

Abstract

Superabsorbent polymers (SAPs) are used in agriculture and environmental engineering to increase soil water retention. Under such conditions, the swelling pressure of the SAP in soil affects water absorption by SAP, and soil structure. The paper presents the results of swelling pressure of three cross-linked copolymers of acrylamide and potassium acrylate mixed at the ratios of 0.3%, 0.5% and 1.0% with coarse sand and loamy sand. The highest values of swelling pressure were obtained for the 1% proportion, for coarse sand (79.53 kPa) and loamy sand (78.23 kPa). The time required to reach 90% of swelling pressure for each type of SAP differs. Samples of coarse sand mixed with SAP K2 in all concentrations reached 90% of total swelling pressure in 100 min, while the loamy sand mixtures needed only about 60 min. The results were the basis for developing a model for swelling pressure of the superabsorbent and soil mixtures, which is a fully stochastic model. The conducted research demonstrated that the course of pressure increase depends on the available pore capacity and the grain size distribution of SAPs. The obtained results and the proposed model may be applied everywhere where mixtures of SAPs and soils are used to improve plant vegetation conditions.