Water-absorbent resin and its production process

摘要

Objects of the present invention are: to provide a water-absorbent resin which exhibits excellent balances between water absorption performances; and further to provide a process by which a water-absorbent resin having excellent absorption properties can be produced even if no hydrophilic organic solvent is used, or even if its amount is extremely reduced, when carrying out the surface-crosslinking treatment; and further to provide a water-absorbent resin optimum to absorbent articles such as diapers. As a means of achieving these objects, the process according to the present invention for production of the water-absorbent resin comprises: a step (1) of polymerizing a monomer component including an acid-group-containing unsaturated monomer as an essential component to thereby obtain a hydrogel polymer; a step (2) of drying and pulverizing the hydrogel polymer to thereby obtain a water-absorbent resin powder; a step (3) of adding a surface-crosslink-treating agent to the water-absorbent resin powder, wherein the surface-crosslink-treating agent includes a surface-crosslinking agent and water as essential components and has a hydrophilic organic solvent content of 0 to 10 mass % relative to the surface-crosslink-treating agent; and a step (4) of heating the resultant mixture to thereby carry out surface-crosslinking treatment; wherein a time of from the end of the step (3) till the beginning of the step (4) is within 5 minutes.