Sorption of organic vapors by copolymers of poly (styrene-butadiene) using a piezoelectric microbalance

Thickness shear mode (TSM) sensors, also known as quartz crystal micro-balances (QCM) are a class of acoustic wave sensors that have been used for gas phase sensing. In this thesis this device is used to measure vapor-liquid equilibrium data for copolymers of poly(styrene-butadiene) at 294K. Copolymers of poly(styrene-butadiene) with varying percentages of styrene (85%, 45% and 21 %) were studied with benzene, n-hexane, dichloroethane and chloroform as solvents. Literature data for pure polystyrene/benzene and polystyrene/chloroform and polybutadiene/benzene were obtained to complement the measured data. Obtained experimental data were fit with a modified Flory-Huggins model and compared with the predictions of three models (UNIFAC-FV, Entropic-FV, and GK-FV). Flory-Huggins model gave a good quantitative fit for the solvent activities in the copolymer solutions