Aging degradation refers to the reduction of intrinsic viscosity and apparent viscosity, but the essence of this phenomenon is the breakage of large polymer molecules. During degradation, the distribution of polymer molecular weight changes, but its total mass concentration remains unchanged. If the polymer solution is made up of several pure components with different molecular weights, then a multi-component model can be used to describe the process of polymer degradation. Based on this idea, a twocomponent model of polymer degradation is established. In this model, polymer degradation occurs between two-components, large molecule component and small molecule component. Intrinsic viscosity and degradation coefficient of the latter component are obtained from laboratory experiment. These two parameters are used in the two-component model to describe the change of intrinsic viscosity during degradation. Furthermore, apparent viscosity change is obtained using semi-empirical relationship between intrinsic viscosity and apparent viscosity. Compared with the multi-component model, the two-component model not only reflects the polymer degradation mechanism but also the two parameters required are easier to obtain.

aging degradation  /  component model  /  intrinsic viscosity  /  degradation coefficient