N. Schuld and B. A. Wolf
"Polymer-Solvent Interaction Parameters" In Polymer Handbook, Eds. J. Brandrup and E. H. Immergut
Wiley Interscience, New York, 4th edn., 1999.
Abstract: The classical thermodynamics of binary polymer-solvent systems was developed independently by P.J. Flory and M. L. Huggins. It is based on the well-known lattice model qualitatively formulated by K. H. Meyer, who pointed out the effect of the differences in molecular size of polymer and solvent molecules on the entropy of mixing. The quantitative calculation of the entropy of mixing led to the introduction of a dimensionless quantity, the so-called Flory-Huggins interaction parameter c, for the thermodynamic description of polymer solutions.
It was evident from the beginning that c is a function of T, however at first c was considered to be independent of the concentration of the polymer. Subsequent experiments have shown the necessity to treat c as a function of composition. Furthermore c also depends on M₂ (the molecular weight of the polymer), not only at high dilution, but - according to recent experiments - even in the range of large polymer concentration.

preprint number: 187