Solvent effects on aggregation behavior of polyvinyl alcohol solutions

Abstract The present study elucidates the effects of solvent quality and polymer concentration on the aggregation behavior of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) solutions from the dilute solution to semi-dilute solution regions. Combination of the results in static and dynamic light scattering indicates that in dilute solution the thermodynamic driving forces primarily dominate the dynamic behavior of PVA/ N -methylpyrrolidone (PVA/NMP) solution. In contrast with PVA/water solution, the hydrodynamic interaction would dominate the dynamic behavior of the solution. The concentration dependence on the dynamic behavior of semi-dilute solution has also been studied through DLS measurement. For PVA/water solutions, the hydrodynamic correlation length of fast mode has a concentration dependence given by ξ D =[ η ] C −0.42 , and the value of exponent is close to the predicted value from scaling theory in the marginal solvent. On the other hand, for PVA/NMP solutions the value of exponent is close to the predicted value from the scaling theory in good solvent limit: −0.75. However, contrary to the expectation, the gelation behavior could not occur in PVA/water solutions at the same condition of gelation in PVA/NMP solution even though the affinity of water to PVA is much lower than that of NMP. In this work, we considered that the PVA/NMP solution might possess a character that could form a homogeneous network structure. The intermolecular associations must play a dominant role as soon as the chains start to overlap in PVA/NMP solution. On the other hand, combining the DLS result with our previous work, the gelation of PVA/NMP solutions is considered due to complex formation in the transient network junctions, i.e. the formation of molecular complex is crucial to the physical gelation in a good solvent system.