Rheological correlations of relaxation time for finite concentrated semiflexible polyelectrolytes in solvents

The Rouse-Zimm model based on the polymer dynamics theory allows us to predict the relaxation time of polyelectrolyte dilute solution as a function of the intrinsic viscosity. In finite concentrated solutions, the empirical analysis adopted in this study is quite useful to examine the relaxation behavior, noting that proper theories are not well-clarified and experimental measurements are rather complicated. For the xanthan biopolymer selected as the polyelectrolyte model of a semiflexible chain, we measured rheological properties of shear viscosity eta and first normal stress difference sigma (Delta 1) in dilute and semidilute solutions over a wide range of shear rates . Power-law scaling relations are commonly observed in the region of s(-1). Accurate regressions on eta and sigma (Delta 1) present empirical plots as functions of the shear rate and the xanthan concentration, from which each of relevant fitting parameters are determined. Empirically determined curves agree well with the experimental data, ensuring that the empirical formula for the characteristic relaxation time lambda is applicable at dilute and finite concentrations, which has not been reported in the literature. We further interpreted the non-Newtonian fluid behavior over a full range of shear rates by applying the Carreau A constitutive model.