Comment to the paper ?A new approach to the determination of the statistical segment length of wormlike polymers? by A. Dondos and G. Staikos

P. Lavrenko (t~) Institute of Macromolecular Compounds Russian Academy of Sciences 199004 St. Petersburg, Russia Here, ML is the shift factor (the ratio of M to the contour length L of the macromolecule) and ~b0 is the ~b value at T = 0. q~0 is equal to 2.870 x 1023 tool 1 in the limit of non-draining random coil [4]. To apply Eq. (4) to data on draining chain it is necessary to know the 9 value which is very sensitive to the draining effect. Namely, the 9 value decreases strongly with decrease of both the number of segments L / A in the chain and the reduced diameter d/A (Fig. 1). To choose the 9 value (with the known a one), Dondos and Staikos [1] have proposed (and this is the basis of the method) the relation between the Flory parameter 4~ and the exponent a