Water monomers affecting hydration

Hydrogels are characterized, first by their capacity to absorb water or aqueous solutions. The water content in the swelling equilibrium of a hydrogel is affected, fundamentally, by the nature of the monomer or monomers that make it up, by the type and density of the cross-link, and by other factors such as temperature, ionic strength, and pH of the hydration medium. 

The short dielectric relaxation process (presented here by 12) is associated with the anisotropic motion of the monomer alcohol species in a chain cluster (149). In microemulsions, the short process is the superposition of several dielectric relaxation processes, which have similar relaxation times such as movement or rotation of the alcohol monomers, hydrate water, and surfactant polar head groups. The short relaxation time is barely affected by the alcohol concentration in the mixture since it is less sensitive to the aggregation process. 

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