Abstract
High temperature thermal gradient interaction chromatography (HT-TGIC) is a new polymer characterization technique developed to characterize the chemical composition distribution (CCD) of ethylene/1-olefin copolymers based on interactions between polymer chains and the graphitic surface. In this work, a mathematical model was developed to describe HT-TGIC fractionation using population balances and a non-equilibrium, multi-stage adsorption/desorption model. The proposed model was validated with HT-TGIC experimental profiles of ethylene/1-octene copolymers with various comonomer contents. Good agreement between experiments and model results was observed.