LINEARIZED CLOUDPOINT CURVE CORRELATION FOR TERNARY-SYSTEMS CONSISTING OF ONE POLYMER, ONE SOLVENT AND ONE NONSOLVENT

A linear correlation function is found for cloudpoint composition curves of ternary systems consisting of one polymer, one solvent and one non-solvent. The conditions for validity of this correlation function appear to be that the polymer is strongly incompatible with the non-solvent, and that only liquid-liquid demixing occurs. The linearized cloudpoint (LCP) curve is interpreted in terms of the various parameters occurring in the Flory-Huggins theory. The slope of the LCP line appears to be only dependent on the molar volumes of the components. Information about the binary Flory-Huggins interaction parameters and their concentration dependence can be obtained from the intercept of the linearized curve. Cloud points induced by crystallization do not follow the correlation. This gives an opportunity to distinguish between crystallization and liquid-liquid demixing without any additional experiments.