Theory of Dilute Macromolecular Solutions

Authors: A Isihara E Guth

Publish Date: 1967

Volume: , Issue: , Pages: 233-260

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Abstract

The object of this paper is to lay the foundations of the Theory of Dilute Macromolecular Solutions in a unified simplified and yet rigorous manner It also aims to acquaint chemists and physicists with a field of rapidly increasing significance in view of possible applications to biophysics and biochemistry The Introduction gives a brief outline of the historical development of macromolecular solution theory Roughly one can distinguish between a lattice and b gastype theories just as in the theory of liquids The former because of their apparent simplicity have enjoyed great popularity for a long time among polymer chemists However lately again just as for liquids the gastype approach has been proven to be more fundamentalOur general approach is a proper adaptation and generalization of the gastype theories of McMillan and Mayer and of Kirkwood and Buff These were originally developed for simple monomer solutions We use the cluster development of McMillan and Mayer which itself is an adaptation of the original UrsellMayer cluster development We then combine this procedure with the distribution function approach of Kirkwood and BuffSection 2 brings the cluster development for the osmotic pressure Section 3 generalizes the approach of Section 2 to distribution functions including a new and simple derivation of the cluster expansion of the pair distribution function Section 4 presents a new expression for the chemical potential of solvents in dilute solutions Section 5 contains an application of our general solution theory to compact macromolecular molecules Section 6 contains the second osmotic virial coefficient of flexible macromolecules followed in Section 7 by concluding remarks

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