Solubility measurement of hydrogen, ethylene, and 1-hexene in polyethylene films through an intelligent gravimetric analyzer

The solubility of hydrogen (H2), ethylene (C2H4), 1-hexene (C6H12), and the mixture of C2H4/1-C6H12 in semicrystalline polyethylene (PE) films is measured using an intelligent gravimetric analyzer (IGA) in combination with prediction equations. For the pure-component sorption in PE, the solubility of C2H4 and 1-C6H12 decreases with the temperature, while that of H2 exhibits an opposite variation tendency in the temperature range under test. For the C2H4/1-C6H12 mixture, the co-solubility is almost 10% smaller than the sum of the pure-component solubility. 1-C6H12 acts as a co-solvent and C2H4 an antisolvent. Moreover, good consistency has been achieved between the measured data and the prediction results from the Sanchez-Lacombe EOS model, demonstrating the reliability of the measurement approach employed in this work. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2016, 134, 44507.