Modelling polylactide/water/dioxane systems for TIPS scaffold fabrication

The representation of liquid–liquid equilibria (LLE) in ternary systems composed by water, 1,4-dioxane and different grades of poly(lactic acid) (PDLLA and PLLA), has been addressed through the PC-SAFT equation of state (EoS), in which the scheme of induced association is used to represent the interaction between solvent (dioxane) and non-solvent (water). The model parameters devoted to the description of pure component properties, as well as those pertinent to the representation of thermodynamic behaviour of solvent/non-solvent mixtures, were tuned on the basis of specific pressure–volume–temperature (PVT) data for the corresponding systems. Only the binary parameters for polymer–solvent and polymer/non-solvent pairs were adjusted to obtain a useful representation of experimental LLE data for the ternary systems. A suitable description of the thermodynamic properties of ternary mixtures was obtained using temperature-independent binary interaction parameters in the range 25–80 °C, and the consistency of the approach in the entire composition range was verified against experimental solubility data specifically measured for the polymer/non-solvent pair. The model shows good ability in the description of the thermodynamic properties of the system and it represents a reliable tool for the prediction of LLE also at conditions different from those considered for its set-up. This approach thus represents a useful designing tool for processes, such as thermally induced phase separation (TIPS), used in the preparation of microporous polymeric scaffolds.