Polyelectrolytes:  Intrinsic Viscosities in the Absence and in the Presence of Salt

Intrinsic viscosities were determined at 25 °C for 10 samples of narrowly distributed sodium polystyrene sulfonate (the molecular weights M ranging from 0.9 to 1000 kg/mol) in pure water and in aqueous solutions containing 0.9 wt % NaCl from the slope of ln ηrel versus polymer concentration. In the middle range of M, the [η] values are in the former case almost 2 orders of magnitude larger than in the latter case. In the absence of salt, the plot of log [η] as a function of log M exhibits a sigmoidal shape, which can be approximated within the interval 3 < M (in kg mol-1) < 30 by log[η] = −0.17 + 2.1 log M. In the presence of salt, the following relation holds true in the entire regime:  lo…