The intrinsic viscosity of linear and cyclic polymer chains in the crossover region

Abstract

The self-consistent Fourier configurational approach to the excluded volume has been used to investigate the intrinsic viscosity of linear and cyclic polymer chains in the crossover region following the Zimm-Hearst scheme with preaveraged hydrodynamic interaction. The results are compared to those obtained with other theoretical approaches and are shown to be in good agreement with extensive experimental results. We predict the ratio of the intrinsic viscosity of cyclic polymers to that of linear chains, g η , will change in a peculiar way with the strength of the excluded volume interaction. Owing to the non-affine expansion of the chains and to its interplay with hydrodynamic interaction g η increases slightly at very low strength and then it quickly decreases below the unperturbed value, in agreement both with perturbation theory results and with experimental data.