Transport properties of polyisobutylene in dilute solution

Despite the extensive studies on poly(isobutylene) (PIB) in dilute solution, measurements of D_t, the translational diffusion coefficient, have not been reported. In this note, the results from static and dynamic experiments on some fractionated PIB chains are presented. Data are reported for PIB in four different solvents of varying thermodynamic quality thereby permitting the comparison of the solution properties of PIB to other flexible chains and various theoretical predictions. This study was motivated by the work of Freed et al. who concluded from literature results and without hydrodynamic data that PIB corresponds to the least draining self-avoiding limit.