Polymer swelling, 13: Correlation of flory–huggins interaction parameter, χ, with molecular structure in polystyrene–liquid systems

It is shown that the Flory–Huggins interaction parameters (χ), for polystyrene–liquid systems, reported by others, vary linearly with the readily and precisely determinable relative swelling power ( C ) of the selfsame liquid, determined in this laboratory using poly(styrene‐co‐divinylbenzene) as the sorbent polymer. This simple gravimetric method appears to be the most suitable for the determination of χ values of polystyrene–liquid systems over the full range of polymer volume fractions. Accordingly, the C values already determined by this method were used to calculate numerous χ values for polystyrene–liquid systems not yet reported in the literature. The data obtained thereby show that χ reflects sensitively the molecular structure of the liquid.