Hi Karar,

For answering your question I should say that:

Water is certainly a good solvent at 30 °C. The PEO tendency to aggregate in water is highly dependent on the purity of the water. In view of the fact that PEO in water has both an upper and lower critical solution temperature of -9 and +103 °C, respectively, good solvent behavior at this intermediate temperature is to be expected.

Polyethylene oxide, or high-molecular weight polyethylene glycol create viscous, stringy solutions of water at concentrations less than 1 wt %. Solutions of higher concentrations are elastic gels. At 20 wt % solids, the solutions are hard and tough water-plasticized polymers.

Near the boiling point of water, the water solubility decreases, phase separation can occur, and the solution can become cloudy.

PEO also dissolves in many organic solvents (as pratama said methylene chloride, ethanol, toluene, acetone, and chloroform), with solubility increasing with temperature.

You can use one of the following organic solvents, methylene chloride, ethanol, toluene, acetone, and chloroform - See more at: http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/materials-science/material-science products.html?TablePage=20204110#sthash.exVNGeNK.dpuf. I think aceton is the best solvent for the PEO.

Hi Karar,

For answering your question I should say that:

Water is certainly a good solvent at 30 °C. The PEO tendency to aggregate in water is highly dependent on the purity of the water. In view of the fact that PEO in water has both an upper and lower critical solution temperature of -9 and +103 °C, respectively, good solvent behavior at this intermediate temperature is to be expected.

Polyethylene oxide, or high-molecular weight polyethylene glycol create viscous, stringy solutions of water at concentrations less than 1 wt %. Solutions of higher concentrations are elastic gels. At 20 wt % solids, the solutions are hard and tough water-plasticized polymers.

Near the boiling point of water, the water solubility decreases, phase separation can occur, and the solution can become cloudy.

PEO also dissolves in many organic solvents (as pratama said methylene chloride, ethanol, toluene, acetone, and chloroform), with solubility increasing with temperature.

Thanks for all.

Dear all;

would you please specify the molecular weight of the PEO under investigation. Regards

Dear, thanks.

In addition to the correct suggestions above, note that in some solvents (ethanol and toluene for example) PEO crystallizes upon cooling.

ethanol a good solvent for PEO

I agree that water is a very good choice.

The water is the best solbent of PEG or PEO. Upon heating the PEO - water system has Low Critical Solution Temperature. PEO or PEG crystallizes upon cooling. This system has not Upper Critical Solution Temperature.

There are big supramolecular particles of PEO in organic solvents.

Water is a good solvent - note though that if there's salt in your water, then the LCST behavior intensifies, and you can get poor solubility even at moderately warm temperatures.  See for example the attached link reference.

http://rd.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01422658

Dear, thanks.

Hi,

I dissolved 300,000 MW, PEO (5%) in DI water by mixing it in water, shook it vigorously, left it overnight and next day after shaking it was dissolved.

does PEO form a colourless solution in water?

Yes.

Thanks a lot.

I want to dissolve 600,000 MW, PEO (30% W/W) in water, is it possible to have a colourless solution in water?

The best PEO solvent is water.

How to get a uniform film of PEO (1 % in DI water) by spin coating? What about with other solvents like ethanol and acetone?

How to get a uniform film of PEO (1 % in DI water) by spin coating? What about with other solvents like ethanol and acetone?

Does the double distilled water and distilled water makes a difference in solubilizing the PEO ?

PEO does not solve in distilled water.

@K Abdali: PEO is crystalline, and what you have might be of a molecular weight that gives a high enough viscosity, so constant stirring or agitation would then be helpful to dissolve the PEO in shorter time. You could also use warmed distilled water to get a similar effect. So long as there's no salts in the water, gentle heating won't cause LCST phase separation. 

Dear, I tried but without interest.

I have dissolved the PEO in double distilled water by keeping on the magnetic stirrer for a whole night.

I want dissolve PEO  with MW 1,00,000, in water. is it possible? how much temperature and time i can give for its dissolution?. I am going prepare a nanocomposites using PEO is the matrix phase.

In this paper DOI: 10.1002/anie.201001684, they dissolved PEO (Mw = 20’000) in

1:1:1 mixture of DMF/EtOH/H2O and warmed slightly, if necessary. And this should work for preparing nanocomposites, since in this paper they mixed dissolved PEO with MOFs to prepare thin film.

I have dissolved PEO with MW 600.000 id water (aqua DI) by keeping in magnetic stirrer (500 rpm) for 24 hour.

I agree, you shall be able to dissolve PEO in water with stirring and, if needed, with heating

Acetonitrile is good solvent for PEO. I was doing on this area

Thank you very much to all for the useful suggestions.

Great to see all informative and effective answers 

Water, chloroform and acetone are good solvents. I have dissolved 5k molecular weight PEO very easily.

I want to use PEG 2000 as plasticizer and I have to dissolve it in water. Which % of PEG2000 should I dissolve in water? Thank you

You can disolve PEG2000 in water till 50% and more at 40-60 degrees Celsius.

Sincerely yours.

Sergey Vshivkov

High MW PEO is dissoluble in water (over 55oC), acetonnitrille(room temperature), methanol(over 55oC), aceton(over 55oC), DMF(over 60oC), and etc.

Yesterday I tried to dissolve PEG-20000 in DI water. I heated the water to 70℃ and stirred the solution for about 20min using glass rod and the PEG was well dissolved.