Chemical Engineering Science, Vol.59, No.17, 3649-3656, 2004
A transport model for the absorption of mixed solvents in glassy polymer membrane
Transport model for mixed solvents in glassy polymer membrane is rare in literature. In our previous work, a new experimental method has been developed and absorption kinetic curves for two mixed solvent systems (ethanol/1,2-dichloroethane and ethanol/ethyl acetate) in polyurethane (PU) membrane at 308.15 K have been measured. In this work, based on Liu et al.'s transport model for single solvent/polymer membrane system, a transport model for the absorption of mixed solvents in glassy polymer membrane is established. Three model parameters in this model can be obtained by correlating the experimental data of the corresponding single solvent/polymer membrane systems; the other three should be determined by correlating the experimental data of mixed solvents/polymer membrane system. The effect of model parameters on diffusion is studied by numerical simulation. The correlated results agree well with the experimental absorption curves. The model has the ability to predict the transport phenomena of mixed solvents in polymer membrane. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:transport;mixed solvents;glassy polymer membrane;creep model;numerical simulation;correlation