(377g) Study of Isothermal Solubilities of Benzene, DCE, DCM, and Chloroform in Diblock and Triblock Copolymers of Polycaprolactone and Polyethylene Glycol at 298.15K Using a QCM
AIChE Annual Meeting
2018
2018 AIChE Annual Meeting
Engineering Sciences and Fundamentals
Poster Session: Thermodynamics and Transport Properties (Area 1A)
Tuesday, October 30, 2018 - 3:30pm to 5:00pm
Triblock and diblock copolymers of Polycaprolactone (PCL) and Polyethylene glycol (PEG) find applications in various biomedical fields. Both homopolymers PCL and PEG have been approved by FDA for biomedical applications and the thermosensitive copolymers of PCL/PEG are largely used as injectable hydrogels in tissue engineering and tissue regeneration due to their slower degradation rate and higher gel strength.
Using a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) the sorption of several different solvents: benzene, dichloroethane (DCE), chloroform, and dichloromethane (DCM), in triblock and diblock copolymers of PCL and PEG were observed at 298.15 K. The solvent-polymer interactions are quantified using the Flory-Huggins model. Weight based activity coefficients at infinite dilution were obtained from the model and trends with the PCL/PEG ratio in the copolymers are shown.