Critical assessment of diffusion coefficients in semidilute to concentrated solutions of polystyrene in toluene

Abstract

We have measured collective diffusion coefficients of dilute, semidilute, and concentrated solutions of polystyrene in toluene up to a polymer concentration of 0.832 mass fractions at T=25 degrees C. The three employed experimental techniques of photon correlation spectroscopy, thermal diffusion forced Rayleigh scattering, and optical beam deflection cover four orders of magnitude with respect to their characteristic diffusion lengths (200 nm-2.9 mm), corresponding to more than 8 decades of the diffusion time constants. Contrary to existing literature data, which suggest a length scale dependent anomalous diffusion at high concentrations, all our techniques yield identical diffusion coefficients and purely Fickian diffusion, irrespective of their characteristic length scale.