Degradation of some polymers in aqueous solutions

In the present work the degradation of some linear polymers in aqueous solutions was studied. The degradation was followed by a viscometric method and a presentation of the theoretical background of this is given. The experiments were carried out with different polymers and it was found that those having oxygen bridges in the molecular backbone were much more readily degraded than those with a backbone of only carbon‐carbon bonds. The degradation was found to be catalyzed by certain impurities, especially chromic and ferric ions and a detailed investigation of this effect was made.