An investigation of a sol-gel/melt transition: the poly(ethylene oxide)/methanol/LiClO4 system

The crossover behavior of 50 000 molar mass poly(ethylene oxide)/methanol solutions from dilute solution to the melt/gel was examined. At first this behavior was investigated without LiClO(4) and then reexamined with LiClO(4). To better understand this behavior, the dependencies of dynamic light scattering (specifically, photon correlation spectroscopy) measurement results on polymer concentration, on the scattering wave vector and on temperature, and the dependence of static light scattering results on the scattering wave vector were studied. This study produced interesting and important results about network structure and behavior in poly(ethylene oxide) solutions and melts generally and about the effects of LiClO(4) on this structure and behavior more particularly.