Time–Concentration Superposition for Linear Viscoelasticity of Polymer Solutions

Abstract

The concentration dependence of linear viscoelastic properties of polymer solutions is a well-studied topic in polymer physics. Dynamic scaling theories allow qualitative predictions of polymer solution rheology, but quantitative predictions are still limited to model polymers. Meanwhile, the scaling properties of non-model polymer solutions must be determined experimentally. In present paper, the time–concentration superposition (TCS) of experimental data is shown to be a robust procedure for studying the concentration scaling properties of binary and ternary polymer solutions. TCS can not only identify whether power law scaling may exist or not, and over which concentration range, but also unambiguously estimate the concentration scaling exponents of linear viscoelastic properties for a range of non-model polymer solutions.