Revisiting very disperse macromolecule populations in hydrodynamic and light scattering studies of sodium carboxymethyl celluloses

One of the most abundant natural macromolecule, cellulose, is of high importance in technological research including medicine, energy application platforms, and many more. One of its most important ionic derivatives, sodium carboxymethyl cellulose, is known to be very disperse and heterogeneous. The experimental robustness of the methods of hydrodynamics and light scattering are put to test by studying these highly disperse, charged, and heterogeneous macromolecule populations. The following opportunities for molar mass estimations from experimental data were taken into consideration: (i) from the classical Svedberg equation, (ii) from size exclusion chromatography coupled to multi-angle laser light scattering, (iii) from the hydrodynamic invariant, and (iv) the sedimentation parameter. The orthogonality of such approach demonstrates a statistically robust assessment of chain conformational and chain dimensional characteristics of macromolecule populations. Quantitative comparison between the absolute techniques indicates that those have to be checked for accuracy of the obtained and derived characteristics.