STRUCTURAL CHARACTERIZATION OF 5 POLYETHYLENE FILMS AND THE DIFFUSIONOF N,N-DIMETHYLANILINE WITHIN THEM - ATTEMPTED CORRELATIONS BETWEEN PROBE DYNAMICS AND PERTINENT MACROSCOPIC AND MICROSCOPIC POLYMER PROPERTIES

The density, degree of crystallinity, melting temperature, thickness, frequency and type of unsaturated groups accessible and inaccessible t o bromine in chloroform, and the frequency of methyl groups have been determined for five polyethylene (PE) films. Attempts to correlate the diffusion coefficients in the PE or the PE/methanol partition constan ts for N,N-dimethylaniline (DMA) and one of the microscopic or macrosc opic properties of the polymers were unsuccessful. The only roughly ph ysically meaningful relationships found are between the diffusion coef ficients and the sum of the frequency of methyl groups and double bond s accessible to bromine in chloroform or the amorphous and interfacial contents of the films, For the PE film of highest crystallinity, two diffusion coefficients were required to obtain a good fit to the data. (C) 1997 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.