Sorption of small molecules in polymeric media

Federico Camboni and Igor M. Sokolov

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2016, vol. 464, issue C, 54-63

Abstract: We discuss the sorption of penetrant molecules from the gas phase by a polymeric medium within a model which is very close in spirit to the dual sorption mode model: the penetrant molecules are partly dissolved within the polymeric matrix, partly fill the preexisting voids. The only difference with the initial dual sorption mode situation is the assumption that the two populations of molecules are in equilibrium with each other. Applying basic thermodynamics principles we obtain the dependence of the penetrant concentration on the pressure in the gas phase and find that this is expressed via the Lambert W-function, a different functional form than the one proposed by dual sorption mode model. The Lambert-like isotherms appear universally at low and moderate pressures and originate from the assumption that the internal energy in a polymer–penetrant–void ternary mixture is (in the lowest order) a bilinear form in the concentrations of the three components. Fitting the existing data shows that in the domain of parameters where the dual sorption mode model is typically applied, the Lambert function, which describes the same behavior as the one proposed by the gas–polymer matrix model, fits the data equally well.

Keywords: Gas sorption isotherms in polymeric media; Universality of the Lambert function (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437116304496
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only. Journal offers the option of making the article available online on Science direct for a fee of $3,000

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:464:y:2016:i:c:p:54-63

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2016.07.018

Access Statistics for this article

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications is currently edited by K. A. Dawson, J. O. Indekeu, H.E. Stanley and C. Tsallis

More articles in Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().