RESUMO
Gas chromatography is a new, fast, accurate and convenient technique to study the correlation of small molecule solvents and polymer membrane materials. It can measure many parameters of dissolution and diffusing characters of a small molecule in a polymer. The retention times and the peak widths at half-height of five small molecule solvents (n-hexane, n-heptane, n-decane, ethanol and water) in the stationary phase of polyethylene were measured. The diffusion coefficients of the small molecule solvents at infinite dilution were calculated with van Deemter equation. The graph plotted according to the results of the diffusion coefficients of n-decane at infinite dilution vs temperatures agreed with the Arrhenius equation. The variance in the diffusion coefficients at infinite dilution of five small molecule solvents was analyzed according to the differences in molecular mass and polarity.
