A new method to determine the partial solubility parameters of polymers from intrinsic viscosity

A modification of the extended Hansen method, formerly used to determine the partial solubility parameters of drugs and non-polymeric excipients is tested with a polymer for the first time. The proposed method relates the logarithm of the intrinsic viscosities of the polymer in a series of solvents and solvent mixtures with the Hansen (three parameter model) and Karger (four parameter model) partial solubility parameters. The viscosity of diluted solutions of hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC) was determined in pure solvents and binary mixtures of varying polarity. The intrinsic viscosity was obtained from the common intercept of the Huggins and Kraemer relationships. The intrinsic viscosity tends to increase with increasing the solubility parameter of the medium. The results show that hydrogen bonding and polarity of the polymer largely determine polymer-solvent interactions. The models proposed provided reasonable partial and total solubility parameters for the polymer and enable one to quantitatively characterize, for the first time, the Lewis acid-base ability of a polymer thus, providing a more realistic picture of hydrogen bonding for solvent selection/compatibility and to predict drug-polymer interactions. Combination of the dispersion and polar parameters into a single non-specific solubility parameter was also tested. The results extend earlier findings and suggest that the models are quite versatile and may be applied to drugs, non-polymeric and polymeric excipients.