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Prediction of the gas permeability of heterogeneous polymer blends
Author(s) -
Kolařík Jan,
Fambri Luca,
Pegoretti Alessandro,
Penati Amabile
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
polymer engineering and science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.503
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1548-2634
pISSN - 0032-3888
DOI - 10.1002/pen.11145
Subject(s) - materials science , permeability (electromagnetism) , polymer , composite material , chemical engineering , polymer science , membrane , engineering , biology , genetics
A recently introduced predictive scheme is used to calculate the permeability of various types of heterogeneous polymer blends, which are characterized by the ratio of the permeability of constituents in the range 10–10,000. The scheme combines a two‐parameter equivalent box model and the data on the continuity of constituting phases acquired by modifying equations proposed by the percolation theory; it takes into account the permeability of components and the interval of phase duality (co‐continuity) delimited by the critical volume fractions of components v 1 cr and v 2 cr . The scheme can be used in two ways: (i) permeability of blends predicted by using the “theoretical” value of parameters v 1 cr = v 2 cr = 0.16 should be regarded as a first approximation which may not well approximate experimental data due to the fact that real v 1 cr and v 2 cr are affected by relative viscosities of the components, interfacial energy, conditions of blend mixing, phase structure coarsening, etc.; (ii) conversely, by fitting experimental data, it is possible to determine v 1 cr and v 2 cr for the studied system; thus the scheme can be alternatively viewed as an efficient tool for phase structure analysis of polymer blends.