Solubility of Supercritical CO2 in Polystyrene during Foam Formation via Statistical Associated Fluid Theory (SAFT) Equation of State

Abstract

The use of supercritical fluids, such as CO2, for polymer foam formation has become popular in the last decade. These physical blowing agents are environmentally responsible, and are able to provide certain processing advantages during foam formation. In order to be able to understand foam formation under relatively high pressures and temperatures, thermodynamic phase equilibrium analysis is required coupled with a good equation of state. The Statistical Associated Fluid Theory (SAFT) equation of state (EOS) is studied in detail for the carbon dioxide/polystyrene system, under supercritical CO2 conditions. The SAFT EOS is found to perform better than the Soave-Redlich-Kwong (SRK) EOS, especially when considering liquid phase compositions and densities. Experimental data from the literature is used to validate model parameters cited in the literature for polystyrene-CO2 binary systems under supercritical conditions. The analysis is done with the assumption that the vapor phase is pure CO2 and in equilibrium with the liquid CO2-polystyrene condensed phase.

Share and Cite:

B. Ott and G. Caneba, "Solubility of Supercritical CO2 in Polystyrene during Foam Formation via Statistical Associated Fluid Theory (SAFT) Equation of State," Journal of Minerals and Materials Characterization and Engineering, Vol. 9 No. 5, 2010, pp. 411-426. doi: 10.4236/jmmce.2010.95029.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1] Sato, Y., et al., Solubilities of carbon dioxide and nitrogen in polystyrene under high temperature and pressure. Fluid Phase Equilibria, 125, (1996), 129.
[2] Prausnitz, J.M., R.N. Lichtenthaler, and E.G. de Azevedo, Molecular Thermodynamics of Fluid-Phase Equilibria. 3rd ed. 1999, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ.
[3] Dolezalek, F., Zur Theorie der binaren Gemische und konzentrierten Losungen. Z. Phys. Chem., 64, (1908), 727.
[4] Carnahan, N.F. and K.E. Starling, Equation of State for Nonattracting Rigid Spheres. The Journal of Chemical Physics,. 51(2), (1969), 635.
[5] Beret, S. and J.M. Prausnitz, Perturbed Hard-Chain Theory: An Equation of State for Fluids Containing Small or Large Molecules. AIChE Journal, 21(6), (1975) 1123.
[6] Wertheim, M.S., Fluids with Highly Directional Attractive Forces. I. Statistical Thermodynamics. Journal of Statistical Physics,. 35(1), (1984) 19.
[7] Wertheim, M.S., Fluids with Highly Directional Attractive Forces. II. Thermodynamic Perturbation Theory and Integral Equations. Journal of Statistical Physics, 35(1), (1984),35.
[8] Wertheim, M.S., Fluids with Highly Directional Attractive Forces. III. Multiple Attraction Sites. Journal of Statistical Physics,. 42(3), (1986) 459.
[9] Wertheim, M.S., Fluids with Highly Directional Attractive Forces. IV. Equilibrium Polymerization. Journal of Statistical Physics, 42(3), (1986), 477.
[10] Chapman, W.G., et al., SAFT: Equation-of-State Solution Model for Associating Fluids. Fluid Phase Equilibria,. 52, (1989), 31.
[11] Huang, S.H. and M. Radosz, Equation of State for Small, Large, Polydisperse, and Associating Molecules. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res.,. 29, (1990), 2284.
[12] Huang, S.H. and M. Radosz, Equation of State for Small, Large, Polydisperse, and Associating Molecules: Extension to Fluid Mixtures. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res.,. 30(8), (1991), 1994.
[13] Chen, S.S. and A. Kreglewski, Applications of the Augmented van der Waals Theory of Fluids. I. Pure Fluids. Berichte der Bunsen-Gesellschalt,. 81(10), (1977), 1048.
[14] Topliss, R., Techniques to Facilitate the Use of Equations of State for Complex Fluid- Phase Equilibria. 1985, University of California, Berkeley.
[15] Huang, S.H. and M. Radosz, Additions and Corrections. Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, 32, (1993), 178.
[16] Rowlinson, J., Swinton, F, Liquids and Liquid Mixtures. 3rd ed. 1982, London: Butterworth Scientific.
[17] Ott, B., “Fluid Phase Equilibrium as modeled by the Statistical Associated Fluid Theory (SAFT) Equation of State”, Ph.D. Dissertation, Michigan Technological University, 2009.
[18] Vargaftik, N.B., Tables on the Thermophysical Properties of Liquids and Gases. 1975, Washington, D.C.: Hemisphere Publishing Co.
[19] Suzuki, K., et al., Isothermal Vapor-Liquid Equilibrium Data for Binary Systems at High Pressures. Journal of Chemical and Engineering Data, 35, (1990), 63.
[20] Behme, S., G. Sadowski, and W. Arlt, Modeling of the separation of polydisperse polymer systems by compressed gasses. Fluid Phase Equilibria, 158-160, (1999), 869.

Journals Menu
Follow SCIRP
Contact us
+1 323-425-8868
customer@scirp.org
WhatsApp +86 18163351462(WhatsApp)
Click here to send a message to me 1655362766
Paper Publishing WeChat

Copyright © 2024 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc.

Creative Commons License

This work and the related PDF file are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

  翻译：