Cononsolvency

[1][2] Since then, numerous studies focused on a manifold of different polymers that featured the cononsolvency effect in water and various organic cosolvents such as methanol, ethanol, and acetone.

[3][4][5] Typically poly(acrylamide)s such as poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) show the cononsolvency effect,[6][7][8] while this effect is also known for other homopolymers and for more complex systems e.g., diblock copolymer, polyelectrolytes,[9][10] crosslinked microgels,[11][12] micelles,[13] and grafted polymer brushes.

[10] [14] Recently, it was also shown that thermo-responsive thin films exhibit the cononsolvency effect in a mixed solvent vapor phase,[15][16][17][18] which can be explained by a decreased volume phase transition temperature, the thin-film analogy of a lower critical solution temperature.

[19][20][21][22] After 45 years of research, the origin of the molecular mechanism behind the cononsolvency effect in a mixture of solvents remains not fully resolved yet.

For example, poly(methyl methacrylate) shows the cononsolvency effect in the binary mixtures of two organic solvents (chlorobutane and amyl acetate[34]).