Polymer-polymer interactions in dilute solution

Abstract

Abstract This chapter deals with interactions between polymers in dilute solution. The chapter does not present a summary either of the results of an extensive search of the relevant literature to date or of a consideration of the behaviours of all possible kinds of polymers under all possible circumstances. Instead, it deals primarily with light scattering studies of interactions in binary systems between non-electrolytic polymer coils, carried out by the author and his coworkers. Two themes emphasized throughout this chapter are: (1) the benefits of using static light scattering (‘SLS’) and the dynamic light scattering technique of photon correlation spectroscopy (‘ DLS’) together to investigate polymer-polymer interactions in dilute solution (see Chapter 8 of ref. 6 and Chapter 13 of this volume), and (2) the interplay between intra-polymer and inter-polymer behaviour in dilute solution.