We know that polyacrylamide comes in three ionic types. What's a simple method to quickly differentiate between anionic, cationic, and non-ionic polyacrylamide?
Anionic acrylamide is typically composed of monomers with negative charge groups (carboxyl groups, sulfonic acid groups) and acrylamide; cationic acrylamide usually consists of monomers with positive charge groups ( tertiary amines, quaternary ammonium salts); non-ionic acrylamide generally has non-ionic monomers (MAM, and nitrogen derivatives).
A relatively rough method is also a relatively simple one.
You can dilute the cationic or anionic reagents you have in hand into a 1% to 3% solution. Unknown ionic samples should also be diluted to the same concentration. After mixing, if the solution becomes cloudy or precipitates, it indicates the opposite ionic type. If there is no reaction with both anionic and cationic reagents, it should be non-ionic.