kariegoldin - 29-9-2015 at 02:45
Im looking to speed up the dissolution rate of a cured polymer.
It does dissolve with acetone in time .Is there anything I can add to the acetone to speed up the process?
Ozone - 29-9-2015 at 06:16
It would depend on the nature of your polymer. To me, "cured" means that it is cross-linked, and, depending on the extent, it may never go into
solution (swell or decompose, yes).
If "cured" merely means that the polymerization (say poly-styrene, PS) is complete, solution will depend on molecular weight and the solvent. For PS,
THF is an ideal (theta solvent for PS) solvent, but not a good one, so solution will be slow. Acetone and toluene are "good" solvents, and they will
dissolve the polymer quickly (so much as a polymer ever really goes into solution, many are colloidal).
To expedite solution, heat can help. If you are stuck with acetone, you are limited by it's low boiling point. Dissolution in refluxing acetone is
probably your best bet.
The topic is too diverse to really be addressed with the minute amount of information given.
O3