Adsorption of poly(vinyl alcohol) on gel permeation chromatography columns depends on the degree of hydrolysis.

Both fully (98%) and partially (88%) hydrolyzed poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) are characterized by aqueous gel permeation chromatography (GPC) coupled with multi-angle laser light scattering. Polymer adsorption on hydrophilic GPC columns is observed for partially hydrolyzed PVA but not for fully hydrolyzed PVA, which is driven by the hydrophobic interactions between the residual acetate groups on PVA and the stationary phase. Desorption of these partially hydrolyzed PVA chains from the packing materials is monitored by decay of the light scattering signal. It is found that the desorption of these polymer chains from porous particles is non-exponential and follows stretched exponential kinetics with index 0.36. It is also shown that asymmetric flow field flow fractionation can be successfully used for the molar mass characterization of PVA, irrespective of the degree of hydrolysis.