PARTICLE SIZE DISTRIBUTION OF POLYMER POWDERS BY ANALYSIS OF SORPTION KINETICS

A method has been proposed for determination of particle size distributions of polymer powders via analysis of the Fickian sorption and desorption kinetics of organic vapors. The basis for this method is a model describing the kinetics of sorption in homogeneous spherical particles having diameters distributed a-mong a finite set of diameters. A computation procedure has been developed for determining the weight fractions of each particle diameter which optimize the fit between the model and experimental sorption data. This procedure has been applied to gravimetric sorption data for several organic vapors in PVC powders ranging in diameter from 0.2 to 80 μm. For samples whose particle structure meets the assumptions of the model, the procedure yields histographic distributions closely approximating the particle size distributions determined by conventional microscopic and sedimentation methods. For porous or agglomerated particles, the method yields an “equivalent spherical size distribution” which adequately describes the sorption kinetics, but may differ significantly from size distributions measured by other methods.