## 3 Results and Discussion
### Three-Component Analysis
Figure 6 shows the same relationship, Area vs. W\({}_{\text{c}}\), although related to an HPC mixture with lowly soluble salicylic acid SA. Unlike mixtures with sodium salicylate, it is clearly visible how the FBW (green triangles) and NFW (red empty circles) fractions of water became saturated first, while the area associated with free water (blue circles) increased with increasing water concentration in the mixture. This was due to the fact that the content of polymer chains was reduced--HPC + SA 1:1 \(w/w\). This lowered the number of possible binding sites and i reduced the number of nanocavities. Moreover, some nanocavities could be occupied by small SA molecules. For that reason, the FBW and NFW areas saturated very quickly, and the FW area rapidly increased [21]. Figure 7 shows a very interesting phenomenon. Similarly to HPC/SA, the number of water binding sites found in HPC/NaSA mixtures was associated with the polymer chains content and was also limited to 1/2 \(-\) HPC + NaSA \(-\) 1:1 \(w/w\). However, as it was previously reported [20], the amount of NFW water, calculated for HPC/NaSA, was equal to 0.48 g/g, comparable to the amount of 0.54 g/g calculated for raw HPC. This phenomenon, shown later in Figure 11C, is related to the presence of a strongly dissociating Na\({}^{+}\) ion [20; 37]. The mobility of water molecules in such a system increased so much that it became impossible to distinguish one fraction of water from the other. The relationships between the percentage of the water fractions and W\({}_{\text{c}}\) in HPC/SA (Figure 8) and HPC/NaSA mixtures (Figure 9) follows the previously observed relationships between surface area and W\({}_{\text{c}}\). The most important observation is that the percentage  
Figure 5: The area of different fractions of water, obtained after deconvolution of a raw HPC vs. W\({}_{\text{c}}\). The blue circles indicate the FW fraction, the green triangles the FBW fraction, the red empty circles the NFW fraction. of NFW in the HPC/SA samples was greater than that of the FWB fraction, and the previously observed exchange between water types in HPC/NaSA mixtures was quick and easy. Similarly, it is very thought-provoking that the percentage of FW fraction was the lowest in the raw HPC mixture (Figure 10) when compared to the other NFW and FBW fractions. Figure 6: The area of different fractions of water obtained after deconvolution of HPC/SA mixtures vs. \(\mathrm{W_{c}}\). The blue circles indicate the FW fraction, the green triangles the FBW fraction, the red empty circles the NFW fraction. Figure 7: The area of different fractions of water, obtained after deconvolution of HPC/NaSA mixtures vs. \(\mathrm{W_{c}}\). The blue circles indicate the FW fraction, the green triangles the FBW fraction, the red empty circles the NFW fraction. Figure 8: HPC/SA mixtures: percentage of the fractions of water in the mixture as a function of water concentration W\({}_{\rm c}\). The blue circles indicate the FW fraction, the green triangles the FBW fraction, the red empty circles the NFW fraction. Figure 10: Raw HPC: percentage of fractions of water in the mixture as a function of water concentration W\({}_{\rm c}\). The blue circles indicate the FW fraction, the green triangles the FBW fraction, the red empty circles the NFW fraction. Figure 9: HPC/NaSA mixtures: percentage of the fractions of water in the mixture as a function of water concentration W\({}_{\rm c}\). The blue circles indicate the FW fraction, the green triangles the FBW fraction, the red empty circles the NFW fraction. Finally, we compared all FW, FBW, and NFW fractions of water obtained for raw HPC, HPC/SA, and HPC/NaSA mixtures to W\({}_{\rm c}\), as shown in Figure 11A-C, respectively. Figure 11: Comparison of all fractions (components) of (**A**) free water (FW), (**B**) freezing bound water (FBW), (**C**) non-freezing water (NFW) to W\({}_{\rm c}\) The red circles, green empty circles, and grey crosses indicate HPC/SA, HPC/NaSA, and raw HPC, respectively.