Solubility of organic solvents in 1,4-cis-polybutadiene

Capillary-column inverse gas chromatography (CCIGC) at infinite dilution of solvent was used to determine partition coefficients of polymer–solvent systems in 1-4,cis-polybutadiene. Experiments were performed at 45, 60 and 80 °C. Partition coefficients were used to determine the following thermodynamic parameters: infinitely dilute weight fraction activity coefficients, Flory–Huggins interaction parameters, and the solubility parameter of the polymer. The results indicated that ethylbenzene and toluene are the most suitable solvents for polybutadiene. The UNIFAC-vdW-FV model gives reasonable predictions of the phase equilibria in these systems.

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► Capillary column IGC was used to study phase equilibria in polybutadiene systems.
► The primary thermodynamic parameters for VLE were determined.
► The UNIFAC-vdW-FV model was evaluated for prediction of the activity coefficients.