General picture of co-nonsolvency for linear and ring polymers

Co-nonsolvency is a puzzling phenomenon that a polymer swells in a good solvent individually, but it collapses in a mixture of good solvents. This structural transition with changing solvent environment has been drawing attention due to practical application for stimuli-responsive polymer. The aim of this work is to describe the physical origin of the co-nonsolvency. In this work, we present Monte Carlo simulations for polymer solutions by using simple and general model. We simulate linear and ring polymers to compare their co-nonsolvency behaviors. Calculating Flory exponents and bridging fractions gives a good description for polymer structures. While the polymer structure shows non-monotonous behavior with increasing the cosolvent fraction, the chemical potential decreases monotonously. This indicates that coil-to-globule transition of polymers is purely controlled by free energy and can be regarded as a thermodynamics transition. We also present that ring polymers have higher looping probability than linear polymers, thus the bridging fraction remains higher at high cosolvent fraction. Our study provides a new perspective to understand polymer structure when the polymer "dissolves well" in any solvent.