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P. J. Willcox, D. W. Howie, K. Shimidt-Rohr, D. A. Hoagland, S. P. Gido, S. Pudjijanto, L. W. Kleiner and S. J. Venkatraman, “Microstructure of Poly(vinyl alcohol) Hydrogels Produced by Freeze/Thaw Cycling,” Journal of Polymer Science Part B, Vol. 37, No. 24, 1999, pp. 3438-3454. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1099-0488(19991215)37:24<3438::AID-POLB6>3.0.CO;2-9

has been cited by the following article:

• TITLE: Significant Improvement of Mechanical Properties for Polyvinyl Alcohol Film Prepared from Freeze/Thaw Cycled Gel

  AUTHORS: Taishi Fukumori, Takahiko Nakaoki

  KEYWORDS: Polyvinyl Alcohol; Mechanical Properties; Freeze/Thaw Cycle; Film

  JOURNAL NAME: Open Journal of Organic Polymer Materials, Vol.3 No.4, October 30, 2013

  ABSTRACT: The mechanical properties of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) films prepared by evaporating water from freeze/thaw cycled gel were investigated as a function of the number of freeze/thaw cycles. The maximum stress of the PVA film prepared by freeze/thaw cycling was larger than that prepared without the freeze/thaw cycle process. The largest maximum stress was 46.2 MPa for a film prepared with 10 freeze/thaw cycles, which was twice as large as that for a cast PVA film without freeze/thaw cycling (22.3 MPa). This is due to the formation of small crystallites during the freeze/thaw cycle process. Furthermore, when the film was annealed at 130°C, the maximum stress was as high as 181 MPa which was comparable to that for PVA films prepared using additives. The crystallinity is not the main factor that determines the maximum stress for either the non-annealed or annealed freeze/thaw cycled films, but the glass transition temperature is well correlated with the maximum stress, irrespective of the annealing process. This is due to the different molecular morphology; the non-annealed freeze/thaw cycled film consists of many small crystallites, but the annealed film consists of larger crystallites formed during the annealing process.