Intrinsic viscosity is a measure of a solute's contribution to the viscosity of a solution. Intrinsic viscosity is frequently referred to as "Inherent Viscosity" in macromolecular literature. It is defined as
where is the viscosity in the absence of the solute and is the volume fraction of the solute in the solution. As defined here, the intrinsic viscosity is a dimensionless number. When the solute particles are rigid spheres, the intrinsic viscosity equals , as shown first by Albert Einstein.
In practical settings, φ is usually solute mass concentration, and the units of intrinsic viscosity are deciliters per gram (dL/g), otherwise known as inverse concentration.
Read more about Intrinsic Viscosity: Formulae For Rigid Spheroids, General Ellipsoidal Formulae, Frequency Dependence, Applications
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