Phase behavior of hyperbranched polymer solutions in mixed solvents

Abstract

Hyperbranched polymers get more and more interesting for several applications due to their tailor-made properties influenced by the architecture and the functional groups of the polymer. The liquid–liquid phase behavior of hyperbranched polymer solutions is an important issue for various applications. Until now, the calculations of these phase equilibria are limited to solutions of hyperbranched polymers in a single solvent using Lattice Cluster theory (LCT). The LCT permits the incorporation of the architecture of the polymer directly in thermodynamic properties, as the Helmholtz energy, without any additional adjustable parameter. This papers aims at the extension of the LCT to ternary systems made from hyperbranched polymer (Boltorn H20), water and propanol. The derived expression for the Helmholtz energy allows for the first time the prediction of miscibility gaps in the ternary system based on experimental data of the binary subsystems. Additionally to the architecture of hyperbranched polymers also the functional groups of hyperbranched polymers play an important role in phase equilibrium. In order to include the association phenomena in the theoretical framework, a modified version of the Wertheim association theory is used. However, during the application of this approach the model lost its predictive power, because ternary data must be used for the parameter estimation procedure. Nevertheless, the combined theory is able to model the experimental phase behavior within the experimental accuracy.