| Abstract: | Water sorption/desorption experiments were carried out on films (～ 220 μm thick) of amorphous poly(ethylene naphthalene-2,6-dicarboxylate) (PEN) stored in ambient conditions for different periods of time (0.5-4 years) and of poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) with different degrees of crystalinity levels (0-29%) by means of FTIR spectroscopy. Water sorption/desorption kinetics follows Fick's law for all samples investigated. Water sorption isotherms, obtained from gravimetric methods, indicate a larger sorption capacity in the case of PEN materials. The apparent diffusion coefficients (D) are larger in the case of PET samples. The observed D values decrease with storage time (physical aging) of PEN samples and with the crystallinity of PET samples. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. |
