| Abstract: | The transport properties of small organic molecules in molten poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC)/atactic poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) blends and their homopolymers were studied with inverse gas chromatography. The elution profiles resulting from various organic solvents and different experimental conditions were used for measuring diffusion and partition coefficients. With the van Deemter equation and retention volumes at infinite dilution, diffusion coefficients of 10?7 to 10?8 cm2/s and partition coefficients of 10–50 were calculated. The dependence of the diffusion and partition coefficients on experimental variables such as the blend concentration, temperature, and solute nature was examined. The presence of PMMA in PVC blends affected the sorption behavior of the PVC matrix up to a certain concentration. Beyond that, it was hard to derive any composition–diffusivity dependence. On the contrary, the diffusion and partition coefficients were greatly influenced by changes in the temperature and by the nature of the solute. For those solutes (e.g., chlorinated hydrocarbons) showing stronger interactions with polymer blends (higher negative values for the Flory–Huggins interaction parameter χ1(23)), higher diffusion and partition coefficients were obtained. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 42: 267–279, 2004 |
