Inherent viscosity

In polymer science, inherent viscosity is the ratio of the natural logarithm of the relative viscosity of a polymer to its mass concentration.

Inherent viscosity is defined as

$$ \eta_{inh} = \frac{\ln \eta_{rel}}{c} $$

where c is the mass concentration of the polymer (g/dL) and $$\eta_{rel}$$ is the relative viscosity, which is defined as

$$ \eta_{rel}= \frac{\eta}{\eta_{s}} $$

where $$\eta$$ is the viscosity of the solution and $$\eta_s$$ is the viscosity of the solvent.

The unit of inherent viscosity is dL/g.