VISCOSITY AND SCATTERING OF VERY WEAKLY CHARGED POLYELECTROLYTES

Careful examination of the concentration range where both intrinsic viscosity and light scattering show a polyelectrolyte effect, even for singly charged halato-telechelic ionomers in DMF, together with the neutron scattering results at higher concentration show that weakly charged polymers may be a very useful tool to understand the complicated effects of coulombic interaction in polyelectrolyte solutions. A theoretical frame-work is given for a systematic study of such weakly charged polymers. The current state of understanding is presented of the properties of solutions of strong polyelectrolytes and of charged rigid particles. Finally it is shown how the transposition to weak polyelectrolytes solutions sheds light on the respective contributions of intra- and intermolecular interactions.