The accelerated development of ceramics, polymers, pharmaceuticals and composite materials requires new methods for the comprehensive and expedient characterization of chemical and physical properties of materials. Characterizing interactions between different materials and between solvents and other materials is time consuming and expensive. Companies spend a lot of time and money determining whether specific materials will be viable components in their products.
POLYSIS is an interactive software application designed to predict the results of in-depth chemical analyses of various solvent-material and material-material combinations, such as polymers, blends, rubbers, clay, carbon, oil and food. It utilizes parameters measured in conventional gas chromatographic experiments and outputs specific retention time, specific retention volume, molar volume and vapor pressure of solvents at the measured temperature. These quantities are utilized to calculate the interaction parameters of 37 solvents with pure polymers and materials or with a pair of polymers as a blend. It also calculates the interactions of a pair of polymers (polymer blend) over a range of temperatures and compositions (weight fraction). These calculations provide insight on the physicochemical properties of polymers, composites, ceramics, rubbers, food, alloys, carbon fibers, clays and nano-materials.
POLYSIS automates the data obtained from gas chromatographs. Gas chromatographs have various benefits over other technologies -- they are more versatile, accurate, fast, and affordable when compared to the competition. GC experiments only require minutes to complete compared to hours and days for other techniques, such as vapor sorption and other conventional methods.
Additionally, GC experiments use a series of chemically different pure solvents that can be injected one after another. The solvent retention times can then be measured from Inverse Gas Chromatograph (IGC) experiments which are utilized, among other parameters, by POLYSIS to yield the desired thermodynamic parameters.
Our technology has various applications. For example, paint companies may want to determine the interaction between a current materials in the paint and a variety of solvents. Or paint companies may want to innovate and find new materials which allow the consumers to use the appropriate solvent to clean the surface which the paint is adhered to more easily. Plastic companies may want to determine if their product performs in extreme temperatures and a variety of compositions. Pharmaceutical companies could determine whether a material can be utilized in a drug by learning whether the material is soluble in water or any other solvent. Any research involving the use of a gas chromatograph and characterizing materials will become faster and easier using this software.
Currently, there are no commercially available alternative technologies which provides this kind of characterization. POLYSIS has a user-friendly interface which results in easy and fast calculations of thermodynamic parameters. The ability to export and save the calculations and final reports enables an efficient and seamless way to manipulate the data from the tests.
