Term of Award

Summer 2025

Degree Name

Master of Science in Applied Physical Science (M.S.)

Document Type and Release Option

Thesis (restricted to Georgia Southern)

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Department

Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry

Committee Chair

Weihua (Marshall) Ming

Committee Member 1

Tiehang Wu

Committee Member 2

John DiCesare

Abstract

The study aims at developing polymer hydrogel nanoparticles containing nitrification inhibitors that may help reduce nitrous oxide emissions (N2O) and nitrate (NO3-) leaching in soils. Direct emulsion polymerization and inverse emulsion polymerization techniques were used to synthesize polymer hydrogel nanoparticles. Hydrogel nanoparticles were synthesized via direct emulsion polymerization by varying the monomer ratio of methyl methacrylate (MMA) and hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) in the presence of crosslinking agents such as poly(ethylene glycol) dimethacrylate (PEGDMA) and ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA). The particle diameter of the acrylic hydrogel nanoparticles ranged from 14 to 250 nm, as determined by dynamic light scattering (DLS). Challenges for inverse emulsion polymerization, such as phase separation and emulsion instability, had unexpectedly led to the unsuccessful preparation of polyacrylamide-based hydrogel nanoparticles, which were presumed to be a natural fit to incorporate hydrophilic nitrification inhibitor (3,4-dimethyl pyrazole phosphate). Our next steps will be incorporating the 3,4-dimethyl pyrazole moiety covalently into acrylic hydrogel nanoparticles.

Research Data and Supplementary Material

No

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