A novel strategy to design semi-hard polymer materials for versatile applications

Various bioengineering and industrial applications demand hard, tough, and mechanically strong polymeric blends. A novel combination of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and polyacrylonitrile was used to synthesize semi-IPNs using redox polymerization method in order to achieve desired property combinations in terms of toughness, generally not found in a single polymeric material. The synthesized end products in the form of polymer matrix were characterized by FTIR spectral analysis in order to confirm the incorporation of PAN into PVA, while the morphological analysis and surface hardness were also observed as a result of variation of PVA content within the gel matrix. The presence of acrylonitrile as the second network was found to impart toughness as observed by the tensile strength measurements.