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RESEARCH PRODUCT

An Alternate Interpretation of Polymer/Solvent Jump Size Units for Free-Volume Diffusion Models

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Polystyrene/toluene mutual-diffusion coefficients have been measured as a function of temperature in the limit of infinite solvent dilution. The solvent to polymer jump size unit ratio (ξ) was determined from the Vrentas−Duda free-volume diffusion model for polymer self-diffusion and is in excellent agreement with values evaluated from solvent self- and binary mutual-diffusion coefficient data. Comparison of the free-volume model to a version of the Kirkwood−Riseman theory, modified for diffusion at infinite dilution under non-ϑ conditions, suggests that ξ follows the temperature dependence of the root-mean-squared end-to-end distance of the polystyrene and can be estimated without the use of diffusion data. This result establishes an explicit theoretical coupling between thermodynamic interactions, Brownian dynamics, and free-volume theory.