Make water ‘disappear’ with a superabsorbent polymer

By Declan Fleming2025-04-23T04:00:00

Source: © Declan Fleming

Use just sodium polyacrylate, water and table salt to amaze learners and show how chemists modify materials for their purposes

In the second half of the 20^th century, materials chemists developed super slurpers – polymers able to absorb hundreds of times their own mass in water. Now, you can find superabsorbent materials like sodium polyacrylate all around you, in food packaging, surgical dressings and of course nappies, to make liquids ‘disappear’. With this simple experiment you can demonstrate how chemists can modify the structure of a material, turning one invention into many. Use it when teaching polymers and their properties to 14–16 year-old learners.

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