Measurement and prediction of blowing agent solubility in polystyrene at supercritical conditions

Partition coefficients of several blowing agents in polystyrene at the infi nitely dilute solvent concentration region are measured using capillary col umn inverse gas chromatograph (CCIGC). The measured partition coefficients are subsequently used to calculate binary interaction parameters in the per turbed soft chain theory (PSCT). Using these values, solubility data of blo wing agents at the finite solvent concentration region are predicted as a f unction of pressure in accordance with the PSCT. The prediction results fro m the PSCT are comparable with the experimental data in the literature. In addition, the PSCT is found to be very sensitive to the partition coefficie nt (and hence, the binary interaction parameter).