Hydrodynamic and molecular characteristics of graft copolymers of chitosan with acrylamide

The conformational properties of macromolecules of chitosan and its copolymers with acrylamide in a mixed solvent 0.33 M CH3COOH + 0.3 M NaCl have been investigated by means of translation diffusion and viscometry. The copolymer macromolecules in a solvent suppressing polyelectrolyte effects possess a higher intracoil density (ρav = 0.010 g/cm3) than the chitosan macromolecules (ρav = 0.006 g/cm3), even though the hydrodynamic radius Rh of chitosan is smaller by a factor of ∼1.5.