Acidic dehydration as an analytical method for evaluating ethylene oxide–propylene oxide copolymers

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Abstract
Acidic dehydration by p‐toluenesulfonic acid at 250°C converts poly(alkylene oxides) into dioxane derivatives which can be separated by gas–liquid chromatography. This procedure has been developed as an analytical technique for characterizing some aspects of the molecular structure of polymers of ethylene and propylene oxides. Experimental data on homopolymers, their blends, and some model copolymers have shown that the method is capable of distinguishing between copolymers of different structures, giving correct overall comonomer contents and also ranking copolymers according to their degrees of blockiness.