Predictive model for gas and vapor solubility and swelling in glassy polymers I: Application to different polymer/penetrant systems

Abstract

An extensive analysis is performed for the use of a model recently introduced for sorption induced volume dilation in glassy polymers, which can be combined with the nonequilibrium lattice fluid model (NELF) for the description of gas and vapor solubility in glassy polymers in a wide temperature range below the glass transition, from dry to fully plasticized conditions. The procedure extends the capability of previous versions of NELF model, as it refers to correlation and prediction of solubility of vapors and swelling agents. To this aim, the model counts on an additional out-of-equilibrium parameter for the polymeric species that interprets its pseudoequilibrium compressibility, and it can be retrieved from the analysis of pure component pressure–volume–temperature data below Tg. The examples discussed in this work show that the overall procedure is highly reliable and addresses the key properties of the system for the direct interpretation of the effect of temperature, solute fugacity and state of glassy polymers on pseudoequilibrium volume swelling and solute content.