PREDICTING POLYMER SOLVENT DIFFUSION-COEFFICIENTS USING FREE-VOLUME THEORY

The Vrentas/Duda free-volume diffusion model accurately correlates polymer/solvent diffusion coefficients over wide ranges of concentration and temperature. Currently the model is semipredictive: limited diffusion data are required to estimate model parameters that can then be used to predict diffusion coefficient behavior over sundry conditions. In this work, we present methods for estimating all of the model parameters without any diffusion data and examine the accuracy of the resulting diffusion coefficient predictions. This is the only technique known that predicts polymer/solvent diffusion behavior without any use of any diffusion data.