1.2 Viscosity of Polymer Solutions
The viscosity of even dilute polymer solutions is usually far larger than just the viscosity of the background solvent, due to the large differences in size between the polymer and solvent molecules. In the non-free draining limit, we consider the polymer chain to move as an equivalent impermeable particle with an associated hydrodynamic volume that produces the same drag as the polymer chain. The friction coefficient is given by Stokes law as