How does the entropy of ternary polymer-solvent-cosolvent mixtures depend on the molar solvent fraction?

E Voyiatzis and MC Bohm, RSC ADVANCES, 6, 97018-97021 (2016).

DOI: 10.1039/c6ra23340f

A decomposition of the entropy of dilute ternary polymer-solvent- cosolvent systems into pair terms is proposed. The variation of each term and its contribution to the total entropy in a coil-globule-coil transition is quantified by molecular dynamics simulations. Contrary to intuition, the modifications of the intramolecular polymer entropy are much smaller than the ones in the polymer-solvent and polymer-cosolvent entropy. For each solvent-cosolvent concentration, we identify the leading entropy term. Furthermore, we relate the modifications of all pair entropies to the occurring changes in the polymer structure.

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