Abstract
Generally, in order to obtain reliable gas solubility data in a polymer melt, one must determine the swollen volume of the polymer with dissolved gas. The swollen volume is typically estimated by an equation of state (EOS). This paper reports on the application of three different equations of state (the Sanchez-Lacombe (SL) EOS, the Simha-Somcynsky (SS) EOS, and the Perturbed Chain Statistical Associating Fluid Theory (PC-SAFT) EOS) to a polymer/gas mixture system for the study of phase equilibria and gas solubility determination. The apparent solubility was obtained using a magnetic suspension balance (MSB). Approaches based on the SL, SS, and PC-SAFT EOS's are herein proposed for predicting the swelling behavior of polymer/gas mixtures and correlating the swollen volume to the apparent solubility.