Abstract
Poly(vinyl alcohol)-borate (PVA-borate) complexes in dilute aqueous solutions were investigated by dynamic light scattering (DLS). Two relaxation modes obtained, were scattering vector-q2 dependent and diffusive. The amplitude of slow mode was independent of borax concentration. In the very dilute PVA concentration regime ( [PVA] < 5 g/L), the PVA di-diol-borate complexation was dominated by intra-molecular reaction, and the fast mode correlation length ςf which corresponds to the polymer chain dimension increased rapidly with borax concentrations lower than 0.06 M, and reached an asymptote in the higher borax concentration regime. However, for a dilute PVA aqueous solution with higher PVA content (i.e., [PVA] = 9 g/L), both intra-and inter-molecular PVA di-diol-borate complexations might happen. The chain expansion and shrinkage of PVA-borate complex with increasing borax concentration was observed due to the balance between the electrostatic repulsion of the charged diol-borate complexes and the intra-molecular crosslink induced by the intra-molecular di-diol-borate complexation.
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