A NOVEL ANALYTICAL METHOD TO ESTIMATE MOLAR-MASS AND VIRIAL-COEFFICIENTS OF POLYMERS FROM OSMOMETRY

In the routine analysis of osmometric data for polymer-solvent systems , a graphical method has been used to estimate the virial coefficients and number average molar mass. However, it is realized that the graph ical method has the disadvantage due to inaccuracies involved in the e stimation of the intercept and slope. The least-squares method is cert ainly a better alternative, but it also has certain limitations. A new analytical method is suggested which is no less effective than the le ast-squares method, but also provides valuable information about the b ehaviour of the observed points in the experimental data. A comparativ e study of the different methods is presented here to indicate the adv antages of the new method over the conventional treatments. (C) 1997 E lsevier Science Ltd.