Advanced Physical Research

The presented work is devoted to the search, preparation, and investigation of aqueous two-phase polymer systems possessing properties suitable for specific application areas. In this study, the effects of a number of inorganic salts (NiSO₄, CoSO₄ and MnSO₄) on the properties of the PEG-dextran-water aqueous two-phase system, and on the parameters characterizing these properties, were examined. The results of the study demonstrate that the addition of these salts causes the binodal curve of the aqueous polymer two-phase system to shift away from the origin of coordinates, the area of the homogeneous region increases, polymer incompatibility in water decreases, and phase separation does not occur. These phenomena arise due to the disruption of the structure of water by the salts in the PEG-dextran-water system. The study also investigated the effect of these salts on the surface tension coefficient of water. The observed decrease in surface tension with increasing salt concentration is consistent with the behavior of water structure-breaking salts.