Characterization of suspension poly(vinyl chloride) resins and narrow polystyrene standards by size exclusion chromatography with multiple detectors: Online right angle laser-light scattering and differential viscometric detectors

This work reports the utilization of a multi-detector size chromatography for the characterization of poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) resins prepared by suspension polymerization in the range of temperatures between 21 and 75 °C. The chromatography equipment offers the possibility of analyzing the samples in terms of their absolute molecular mass using a combination of three detectors (TriSEC): right angle light scattering (RALLS), a differential viscometer (DV) and refractive index (RI). The PVC resins were fully characterized concerning the molecular weight distribution (MWD), its dependence with intrinsic viscosity (η) and molecular sizes (radius of gyration, Rg and hydrodynamic radius, Rh). Additionally, it is also presented the characterization of polystyrene narrow standards serving as reference polymers. It is possible to find in the literature several methodologies concerning the breaking of typical aggregates presented in PVC solutions. The most suitable for the experiments were chosen, adapted and analysed by light scattering. It was observed that the application of the TriSEC to study PVC solutions was effective and it was concluded that this is an important tool for the polymer characterization, opening the possibility of running experiments avoiding the need of fractionation of the polydisperse PVC in order to obtain the Mark–Houwink–Sakurada (MHS) constants, or the utilization of MHS, that are quite diverse in literature.