title: Small-angle X-ray scattering as a useful supplementary technique to determine molecular masses of polyelectrolytes in solution.
abstract: Determination of molecular masses of charged polymers is often nontrivial and most methods have their drawbacks. For polyelectrolytes, a new possibility for the determination of number-average molecular masses is represented by small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) which allows fast determinations with a 10% accuracy. This is done by relating the mass to the position of a characteristic peak feature which arises in SAXS due to the local ordering caused by charge-repulsions between polyelectrolytes. Advantages of the technique are the simplicity of data analysis, the independency from polymer architecture, and the low sample and time consumption. The method was tested on polyelectrolytes of various structures and chemical compositions, and the results were compared with those obtained from more conventional techniques, such as asymmetric flow field-flow fractionation, gel permeation chromatography, and classical SAXS data analysis, showing that the accuracy of the suggested method is similar to that of the other techniques. © 2016 The Authors. Journal of Polymer Science Part B: Polymer Physics Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys.2016,54, 1913-1917.
authors.affiliation: Interdisciplinary Nanoscience Center (iNANO) and Department of Chemistry Aarhus University Gustav Wieds Vej 14 Aarhus C 8000 Denmark.
authors.forename: Beatrice
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Plazzotta
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry University of Oslo P. O. Box 1033 Blindern Oslo N-0315 Norway.
authors.forename: Jakob Stensgaard
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Diget
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry University of Oslo P. O. Box 1033 Blindern Oslo N-0315 Norway.
authors.forename: Kaizheng
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry University of Oslo P. O. Box 1033 Blindern Oslo N-0315 Norway.
authors.forename: Bo
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Nyström
authors.affiliation: Interdisciplinary Nanoscience Center (iNANO) and Department of Chemistry Aarhus University Gustav Wieds Vej 14 Aarhus C 8000 Denmark.
authors.forename: Jan Skov
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Pedersen
keywords: SAXS; calculations; electrostatic interactions; molecular masses; polyelectrolytes