Dipolarity, Hydrogen-Bond Basicity and Hydrogen-Bond Acidity of Aqueous Poly(ethylene glycol) Solutions

Abstract

Poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) in water is known to alter the structure and/or state of water to give a different polarity from that of pure water. We determined using the solvatochromic comparison method the dipolarity/polarizability (π^*), hydrogen bond (HB) accepting basicity (β) and HB donating acidity (α) of aqueous solutions of PEGs of variegated molecular weights at different concentrations in order to understand the influence of the polymer on these properties of water. It was observed that PEG decreases α for water while it does not change π^* and β appreciably in the range of the molecular weight and compositions studied.