Phase equilibrium in aqueous two-phase systems containing ethylene oxide–propylene oxide block copolymers and dextran

Phase equilibrium of aqueous two-phase systems containing the polysaccharide dextran and ethylene oxide (EO)/propylene oxide (PO) triblock copolymers was investigated in this work. Phase diagrams at 25.0 °C were experimentally obtained for systems formed by either dextran 19 (average molar mass of 8200 g mol−1) or dextran 400 (average molar mass of 236 kg mol−1) and one of the following block copolymers F38, F68, F108, P105 and P103, which present different structures in terms of EO/PO ratios and molar masses. It was possible to assess the influence of the polymer features on the phase equilibrium: the main factors affecting phase equilibrium being the size of dextran molecule and the structure (mainly the EO/PO ratio) of the copolymer. The Flory–Huggins equation was used to correlate the experimental data with good qualitative agreement, allowing the inference that changes in the copolymer hydrophobicity are the main responsible for the observed phase diagrams.