Evaluation of various solvent systems for modeling solute sorption with plasticized polyvinyl chloride materials

The partitioning behavior of 16 chemically diverse model solutes was determined for four model solvents (octanol, hexane, heptane, and chloroform) and two components of plasticized polyvinyl chloride [PVC; PVC resin and dioctyl phthalate (DOP) plasticizer]. Interactions between these model solutes and four plasticized PVC polymers, differing in their PVC-to-DOP weight ratio, were studied. The data were used to evaluate the utility of the solvents and components to act as PVC interaction models (correlating the interaction constant of the plastic with the solvent-water partition coefficients of the solute). The ability of any single solvent to model the material-solute interaction was limited because of the multiple mechanisms by which the PVC and the solute can interact. Several bimodal solvent systems, including octanol and hexane, DOP and PVC resin, and octanol and heptane, mimic the behavior of polymers studied with a higher degree of accuracy. The success of these pairings is directly related to their ability to target different potential material-solute interaction mechanisms. The interaction properties of the test plastics are strongly impacted by the amount of plasticizer in the material. The interaction properties of the materials studied could be effectively represented as a mass-related average of the interaction properties of the major components of the material.