Determination of the critical parameters of polymer solutions

The contribution of short-range orientation order to the chemical potentials of components in a polymer-solvent system was determined. The temperature dependence of the degree of orientation of solvent molecules relative to polymer chains in a polyisobutylene-benzene system was obtained. It was shown that the short-range order in the polymer-solvent system fails with temperature to a much lesser extent than in the pure solvent. The expressions for the upper and lower critical solution temperatures with allowance for the contribution of short-range order to the entropy and the free energy of solution, as well as to the chemical potentials of components, were found. It was demonstrated that, in the polymer-solvent system, two upper and two lower critical solution temperatures can exist.