VISCOMETRIC DETERMINATION OF THE STATISTICAL SEGMENT LENGTH OF WORMLIKE POLYMERS

A new viscometric method, which consists of plotting the inverse of th e intrinsic viscosity versus the inverse of the square root of the mol ecular mass (Dondos and Staikos, Colloid Polym. Sci., 1995, 273, 626) has been applied for the determination of the statistical segment leng th of a poly(p-phenylene) ribbon-type polymer (Me-LPPP). The same meth od has also been applied to determine the statistical segment length o f other wormlike polymers with viscometric data taken from the literat ure. The values of the statistical segments obtained using this new me thod are in close agreement with the values obtained from other method s. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.