Equilibrium Sorption of Propane and 1-Hexene in Polyethylene: Experiments and Perturbed-Chain Statistical Associating Fluid Theory Simulations

Autor: Josef Chmelař, Juraj Kosek, Kateřina Haškovcová, Martina Podivinská
Rok vydání: 2017
Předmět:
Zdroj: Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research. 56:6820-6826
ISSN: 1520-5045
0888-5885
DOI: 10.1021/acs.iecr.7b00572
Popis: The availability of sorption equilibrium data is important for the design and optimization of polymerization processes. In this work, we used a gravimetric apparatus based on a magnetic suspension balance and the perturbed-chain statistical associating fluid theory (PC-SAFT) equation of state to study the equilibrium sorption of propane and 1-hexene in polyethylene (PE). Propane is used as a diluent in the gas-phase catalytic polymerization of ethylene, while 1-hexene is a commonly used comonomer. Experiments were carried out at industrially relevant conditions using a large set of PE samples with densities from 902 to 967 kg m–3. The solubilities were rigorously evaluated using temperature-dependent crystallinities, and swelling corrections were considered. The solubilities of both penetrants increased with decreasing temperature and decreasing PE crystallinity. Additionally, the PC-SAFT binary interaction parameters did not depend on the temperature. Such dependencies are predicted by theory but are onl...
Databáze: OpenAIRE