An Investigating on the Importance of Flory-Huggins Binary Interaction Parameters in Membrane Formation

Thermodynamic stability of polymer-solvent and polymer-solvent-nonsolvent mixtures is of great importance in membrane manufacturing. It plays an important role in understanding the membrane formation techniques.The Flory-Huggins theory has been used for determining the phase equilibrium of the binary (polymer/solvent) and ternary (polymer/solvent/nonsolvent) mixtures. In this paper, we are investigating the effects of binary interaction parameters in phase equilibrium and solubility of ternary and binary mixtures. Hansen solubility parameters have been incorporated in to the Flory-Huggins model for poly(methylacrylate)-poly(dimethyl siloxane)-poly(methyl acrylate) triblock copolymer/dichloromethane binary mixture;binary interaction parameter was calculated and the solubility of mixture was investigated. In order to study the importance of interaction parameters in ternary mixtures, the known phase diagram of water/acetone/cellulose acetate (CA) was plotted from Flory-Huggins theory. The effect of binary interaction parameter on position of binodal phase diagram of water/acetone/CA for manufacturing of membranes from ternary mixture was studied

Keywords:

Flory-Huggins Theory , Binary Interactions , Solubility , Phase Diagram , Thermodynamic