Comparison of Particle Size Distribution Models for Polymer Swelling

Abstract

In polymer technologies, various particle shapes and size distributions can be found. One of these are heterodisperse polymer beads. The capabilities of polymer swelling can be used in industries, e.g in the production of ion-exchange resins, to intensify specific technological steps such as sulphonation in the manufacturing process of ion-exchange resins. According to the literature different approaches can be used to create models for describing the behavior of disperse systems, of which the simplest models are the particle size distribution models for a given state of the solid phase. The aim of our examination was to compare and evaluate these simple models in terms of modeling polymer swelling. Hence, most of these models examine how each of the investigated models can be applied to approximately describe growth in a heterodisperse polymer system and how the identified model parameters in each time step could be interpreted. All the models were fitted to generate particle size distributions based on a swelling rate constant. The swelling of a styrene divinylbenzene-based copolymer was chosen as the basis of our examination. A model is proposed that is capable of describing the changes in the size of beads over time in this system.

Keywords

• polymer swelling
• particle size distribution
• heterodisperse polymer beads
• modeling
• ion-exchange resin