Solubility and Chemical Resistance of PET

Chemical resistance of PET to different solvents and chemicals are given in the following table. 

PET is insoluble in mostly all organic solvents. However it is possible to obtain PET solutions by using o-chlorophenol, trifluoro-acetic acid, hexafluoroisopropanol (HEIP) and a mixture of phenol and trichloroethane. 

In such solvents, it is possible to establish Mark-Houwink-Sakurada relationships  

Where [r)] is the intrinsic viscosity (usually in mL/g or dL/g units), M is the viscosimetric-average molar mass and K and a are 

By using this kind of equation, it is possible to characterize a polymer by its intrinsic viscosity and to obtain its viscosimetric-average molar mass M. It is also possible to obtain the complete distribution of molar mass (DMM) by using Size Exclusion Chromatography and pure HFIP or a chloroform/HFIP 98/2 mixture as a mobile phase (eluent) (10,11). 

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