Estimation of diffusion and solubility coefficients for water and CO2 in reaction injection molded parts

The evolution of gases from Reaction Injection Molded (RIM) parts during painting causes “pinhole” surface defects, which result in scrap. The transport of gases plays a major role in this outgassing. The diffusion rates of CO₂ and water through reaction injection molded parts is measured in this work. Despite the presence of glassy hard domains and dispersed microbubbles of size <25 μm (nucleated parts), the diffusion showed Fickian characteristics, and diffusion coefficients were independent of the concentration of water and CO₂ in nucleated and non-nucleated RIM parts. The presence of microbubbles enhances diffusion, which could be predicted from the diffusion rate through the non-nucleated material by using a simplistic one-dimensional model. The diffusion coefficients of water and CO₂ follow an Arrhenius relationship. The solubility coefficients follow a van't Hoff relationship over a wide range of 20 to 150°C. Apart from predicting diffusion and solubility coefficients, for various RIM materials and processing conditions, the estimated parameters will be used to interpret the outgassing phenomenon in a subsequent paper.