Inverse gas chromatography has proved to be an excellent method of determining thermodynamic and transport properties in binary polymer-solvent systems in both the infinite and finite concentration regimes. Its application to multicomponent systems, however, has been limited to thermodynamic analyses because of the complexity of the mathematical treatment required and limitations of the experimental techniques. The IGC method requires the detailed modeling of the chromatograph peaks. Publications by DeBarro et al. [1] and Davis et al. [2] have pointed out the necessity of obtaining separate elution curves for all components of the mixture if diffusivities are to be determined. To do that, a selective component detector is necessary. In this work, a mass spectrometer detector has been successfully used to measure partition and diffusion coefficient at infinite and finite concentrations in polymer-solvent systems. Comparisons with binary data collected by other commonly used techniques proved the reliability of the method. For the first time ternary polymer-solvent-solvent diffusivities at finite concentrations of all components have been measured by IGC. After equilibrating the polymer coated column with a mixture of the solvents, an injection of one of the components or the mixture was made. The solubility and diffusivity were determined by comparing the elution profiles from the experiment with those predicted from several multicomponent IGC models. The models successfully capture the experimental elution profiles in general and yield reasonable partition and diffusion coefficients. All of these models, however, involve some simplifications. This new approach and data should lead to the development of a more rigorous model and perhaps more accurate results from the multicomponent IGC method.

1. Debarro, M.J., S.B. Mcgregor, and C.J. Glover, Composition Profiles in Multicomponent Perturbation Gas-Chromatography. Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, 1988. 27(6): p. 1066-1073. 2. Davis, P.K., J.L. Duda, and R.P. Danner, Modeling of an IGC Experiment to Analyze Ternary Polymer-Solvent Systems. AIChE Journal, 2005. 51(11): p. 2930-2941.

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