Intrinsic viscosity of bead models for macromolecules and bioparticles

Abstract.

A new method based on the fractal dimension dependence of the hydrodynamic radius is proposed for calculation of the intrinsic viscosity of bead models. The method describes properly the viscosity increment except for elongated structures such as linear aggregates and ellipsoids. It is expected to be useful for very compact structures, for which the volume correction does not improve the results calculated by the modified Oseen tensor. The results obtained for the viscosity increment lie between the volume corrected ones and those determined by the cubic substitution procedure. They are close to the values recalculated from the falling velocities of the models analyzed.