Concentration-dependent switch between chain association and dissociation of oppositely charged weak polyelectrolytes in solution

2019

Abstract Joint solutions of oppositely charged weak polyelectrolytes are considerably less studied than their strong counterparts; as a result, their thermodynamic understanding is still unsatisfactory. This shortcoming hampers the development of a general picture about the physical properties of these mixtures, which further hampers their use to design new materials. To close this gap, we investigate the ternary system ethanol/polyacid/polybase (polyacid: methacrylic acid containing copolymer; polybase: N,N-dimethylaminoethyl methacrylate containing terpolymer) with respect to its demixing and viscometric behavior. Complete homogeneity can only be reached if the total polymer concentration…