Measurement and prediction of solubilities and diffusion coefficients of carbon dioxide in starch–water mixtures at elevated pressures

Abstract

AbstractThe solubility and diffusion coefficient of carbon dioxide in intermediate‐moisture starch–water mixtures were determined both experimentally and theoretically at elevated pressures up to 16 MPa at 50 °C. A high‐pressure decay sorption system was assembled to measure the equilibrium CO2 mass uptake by the starch–water system. The experimentally measured solubilities accounted for the estimated swollen volume by Sanchez–Lacombe equation of state (S‐L EOS) were found to increase almost linearly with pressure, yielding 4.0 g CO2/g starch–water system at 16 MPa. Moreover, CO2 solubilities above 5 MPa displayed a solubility increase, which was not contributed by the water fraction in the starch–water mixture. The solubilities, however, showed no dependence on the degree of gelatinization (DG) of starch. The diffusion coefficient of CO2 was found to increase with concentration of dissolved CO2, which is pressure‐dependent, and decrease with increasing DG in the range of 50–100%. A free‐volume‐based diffusion model proposed by Areerat was employed to predict the CO2 diffusivity in terms of pressure, temperature, and the concentration of dissolved CO2. S‐L EOS was once more used to determine the specific free volume of the mixture system. The predicted diffusion coefficients showed to correlate well with the measured values for all starch–water mixtures. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 44: 607–621, 2006