Linear chain concentration regime

Branched polymers can also be dissolved at fairly high concentrations. Because of the higher segment density in the isolated macromolecules the overlap concentration will also be increased. For this reason the semi-dilute regime of branched polymers may in some cases be larger than for linear chains, say about 20% or more. Clearly, however, a full interpenetration, as was assumed for flex-... 

Only at a sufficiently high polymer concentration, when the dimensions of the arms approach those of individual linear chains in a semidilute solution at the same concentration, do the star coronae become fully interpenetrated and the correlation peak in the scattering curves disappears. In this concentration regime, the thermodynamic properties of the solution of branched macromolecules become similar to those of linear chains. 

The mean-squared radius of gyration of a linear chain molecule in the concentrated-solution regime is proportional to the number of mers in the macromolecule. The thermodynamic properties of the solution depend on the interaction between the solvent molecules and the mers. To facilitate the discussion of these interactions, Flory chose to divide the chain molecule into... 

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