GAS CHROMATOGRAPHIC DETERMINATION AND CORRELATION OF WEIGHT-FRACTION HENRY'S CONSTANTS FOR HYDROCARBON GASES AND VAPORS IN MOLTEN POLYMERS

In the polymer industry, separation equipment is required to separate unreacted monomers and solvents from polymers. In order to design such equipments, solubilities of gases and vapors in molten polymers are needed as fundamental data. It is very helpful if the weight-fraction Henry's constant, which gives solubilities of a solute at concentrated regions of a polymer, can be estimated by a predictive method.

In the present study, a new expression for the free volume term has been derived and is coupled with the UNIFAC model. The present UNIFAC-FV model was applied to common polymer systems. The weight-fraction Henry's constants were calculated for several volatile hydrocarbons and the calculated results were compared with the experimental data determined by a gas chromatographic technique.

The present UNIFAC-FV model with a new free volume expression was found to be helpful in predicting the weight-fraction Henry's constants of hydrocarbon solutes in molten polystyrene, in polypropylene, and in low-density polyethylene. It is advantageous that our model is applicable both supercritical gases and subcritical vapors with no adjustable parameters.