Grafted polysaccharides based on acrylamide and N,N‐dimethylacrylamide: Preparation and investigation of their flocculation performances

The graft copolymerization of N,N‐dimethylacrylamide (DMA) and acrylamide (AM) were carried out onto different polysaccharide backbones separately. The graft copolymers were synthesized by ceric ion induced redox polymerization technique. Three polysaccharides were used, namely hydroxyethyl starch (HES), hydroxyethyl cellulose (HEC) and Amylopectin (AP), for the grafting reactions. Among the three polysaccharides, HEC has linear structure, while HES and AP have a branch one. The graft copolymers were characterized by intrinsic viscosity measurements, FTIR spectroscopy, NMR (both ¹H and ¹³C) spectroscopy, and thermal analysis. Flocculation performances of the graft copolymers were evaluated in 1 wt % kaolin and in 0.25 wt % iron ore suspensions. A detailed comparative study of the flocculation properties of the synthetic graft copolymers was also made. It showed that graft copolymers based on DMA were better flocculants than those based on AM. Among the synthetic graft copolymers, HES‐g‐Poly (DMA) performed best when compared with the other synthetic graft copolymers as well as to the commercial flocculants in the same suspensions. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci., 2013