Viscosity behaviour of macro‐ring polystyrene in solution

A simple treatment for the intrinsic viscosity data of a flexible macro-ring polymer in solution is proposed. The viscosity behaviour of dilute solutions of a macro-ring with molar mass M is considered to be equal to that of a linear chain with molar mass λT·M, where the factor λT is found to be close to 0,5. Thus the ratio of the intrinsic viscosity of the macro-ring polymer and that of the corresponding (same molar mass) linear chain polymer gr ≡ [η]r/[η]l = λ with α = exponent of Mark-Houwink equation gives the correct excluded volume effect on the value of gr as verified by the dilute solution viscosity behaviour of a macro-ring polystyrene sample of weight-average molecular weight Mw = 2,72·105 and theta- and thermodynamically good solvents.