Hydrogels in bulk form are synthesized using homogeneous
polymerization techniques, wherein all the ingredients are homogeneously mixed together in a single medium to form the hydrogel
(Ahmed, 2015). The synthesized bulk hydrogel usually takes the
shape of the container in which it was polymerized. For better
adsorption performance (e.g., quick pollutant uptake), the bulk
form of hydrogels is often reduced to a small sized particles form,
mostly by mechanical grinding (Tang et al., 2010). However, the
grinding step yields hydrogel particles with polydispersity and the
possibility of damaged morphology because of attrition (Miao et al.,
2007; Capek, 2010). To avoid such issues, researchers have