Fluid Phase Equilibria, Vol.202, No.1, 67-88, 2002
Calculation of pVT and vapor-liquid equilibria of copolymer systems based on an equation of state
A molecular thermodynamic model for copolymers and their mixtures has been established by adopting the hard-sphere-chain fluid as a reference and a square-well (SW) term as well as an association term as a perturbation. The latter is introduced to consider various associating functions in a chain-like molecule based on the shield-sticky model of chemical association. The model adopts five molecular parameters, i.e. r(i), sigma(ii) epsilon(ii)/k, deltaepsilon(ii)/k and omega(ii), for a polymer species i, where the last two are responsible for association. These parameters can be obtained from the pVT data of the corresponding molten homopolymer i. The model can be used to correlate pVT data for molten copolymers with an adjustable parameter describing the interaction between different polymer species. The model can also be used to calculate vapor-liquid equilibria (VLE) for copolymer solutions with three adjustable interaction parameters.
Keywords:equation of state;molecular thermodynamic model;copolymer;vapor-liquid equilibria;pVT relationship;association