Studies of Polymer Solvation by Dielectric Relaxation Spectroscopy IV:Polyvinylpyrrolidone in Urea Derivatives at Different Temperatures

The dielectric spectrum is measured up to 72 GHz of solutions of polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) in tetramethylurea (TMU), dimethylethylene urea and dimethylpropylene urea. Concentrations are up to a monomole fraction of 0.65 (PVP 1200) or 0.5 (PVP 40 000). Measuring temperatures are 20CC for all systems and additionally 40 and 60°C for the TMU solutions. For the description of the results a superposition of Debye type components is used, which are discussed in particular with respect to the solvent contributions. These can be distinguished into three regions: (i) Unaffected bulk-type; (ii) loosely affected, relaxation time and activation enthalpy increasing with increasing polymer content; (iii) quasi bound and moving together with the polymer. The solvation numbers (total of affected solvent per repeat unit of polymer) are about 1.5 to 2.