Patent ID: 6846518

Claim:
A continuous method for the production of a water-absorbing composite, comprising: complexing to produce a particle-substrate composite by dropwisely supplying an aqueous solution of polymerizable monomers consisting mainly of an unsaturated carboxylic acid where 20% or more of the carboxyl groups in the unsaturated acid are neutralized, while allowing polymerization to proceed in the droplets, onto a fibrous substrate fed to the drop point to allow the incompletely polymerized polymer particles to adhere thereon, and completing the polymerization thereafter; reducing the water content of the polymer particles composed of the particle-substrate composite within a range from 10 to 40 wt % by bringing the particle-substrate composite into contact with a hydrophilic organic solvent; and surface crosslinking the composite with a crosslinking agent, having two or more functional groups capable of reacting with a carboxyl group and/or carboxylate group, in the presence of 1 to 100 weight parts of water per 100 weight parts of polymer particles derived from the polymerizable monomer contained in the composite.