laws have been derived for the boundaries between the regimes in the state
diagram and for some characteristic properties. We will not discuss those in
detail, since (a) the numerical constants are unknown and (b) the laws do
not really apply to most food polymers because of their heterogeneity: chain
lengthðnÞvaries between molecules and solvent qualityðbÞand stiffness
FIGURE6.13 Idealized example of a part of a state diagram of polymer solutions.
j¼ net polymer volume fraction, b¼excluded volume parameter, and x¼
correlation length. The critical point for phase separation is denoted by. See text.