VISCOMETRIC BEHAVIOR OF POLYELECTROLYTES IN THE PRESENCE OF LOW-SALT CONCENTRATION

The purpose of this paper is to draw a general picture for viscometric behaviour of polyelectrolytes. The polymers tested are hyaluronan (la mbda = 0.7) and sodium polystyrene sulfonate (lambda = 2.8) with diffe rent molecular weights. The viscometric behaviour in isoionic dilution is examined and one demonstrates that k'[eta]similar to C-s(3/2). Dil ution in water or with solvent of low salt concentration causes the re duced viscosity to pass through a maximum for a given polymer concentr ation. The position of the maximum and the amplitude of this maximum i s analyzed for the low molecular weight samples in the dilute regime. The electrostatic contribution dominates and the treatment adopted giv es good agreement between calculated and experimental data. (C) 1998 E lsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.