Abstract: Copolymers of ethylene and propylene oxide provide a way to vary properties based on the mid-block size and relative size of the poly(oxyethylene) and poly(oxypropylene) blocks. This allows manipulation of some key properties like wetting, foaming, viscosity, solubility, and cloud point. In manufacturing practice, it is common to focus on the hydroxyl value of the mid-block and the final product as process control parameters or specifications. It should be useful to describe the variability of key properties, which may include specifications, on these process parameters. Here we focus on the variation of cloud point with architecture of a particular compound, Meroxapol 172. A two-factor (POE and final molecular mass or percent POP) full factorial DOE was carried and correlated to cloud point.
