Hydroxyl end groups influence in vibrational and transport properties in polymer/monomer solutions: the PEO/EG case

A study has been made of vibrational properties in ethylene glycol (EG; H(O CH2CH2)OH) and EG monomethyl ether (EGmE; CH3(OCH2CH2)OH) in solution toget her with poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO; H(OCH2CH2)(n)OH) at different concentra tions, performed by Fourier transform infrared absorbance (FT-IR) spectrosc opy. The results ae compared with previous viscometry and photon correlatio n spectroscopy (PCS) studies, using EG dimethyl ether (EGdE; CH3(OCH2CH2)OC H3) as solvent as well. These homologous systems differ from each other in the number of OH end groups, in particular two for EG, one for EgmE and zer o for EGdE. Combining analysis of the vibrational and transport properties of EG, EGmE and EGdE in solution with PEO over a wide range of concentratio n made it possible to check the quality (good theta or poor) of these three different solvents and the role played by the hydrogen bond in the various solute-solvent interaction mechanisms, resulting in the well known de Genn es scaling law.