Journal of Chemical and Engineering Data, Vol.60, No.10, 3033-3038, 2015
Solubility of Subcritical and Supercritical Propylene in the Semicrystalline Polyethylenes
Solubilities of propylene in high-density polyethylene (HDPE), low-density polyethylene (LDPE), and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) were measured using the pressure-decay approach at temperature ranges from (348.15 to 383.15) K and pressures up to 8 MPa. The experimental data were correlated by the Sanchez-Lacombe equation of state (SL EoS) with temperature-dependent binary interaction parameters k(ij)). The SL EoS could predict well the solubilities of propylene in the different semicrystalline polyethylenes (PEs) over a wide range of conditions, including the supercritical state. The discrepancies between the model calculation and the experimental data were within 4 %. Among the above three PEs, HDPE had the lowest propylene solubility due to its high crystallinity and small free volume. Although LDPE and LLDPE had the similar crystallinity, the propylene solubility was higher in the former, suggesting that the propylene solubility in PEs also depends on the chain microstructure.