Modeling of copolymer solubility in supercritical CO2 for the development of environmental-friendly cleaning processes

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CO2 is an environment-friendly solvent that can be used as a substitute for classical solvents (aqueous or organic). However, the design of a new cleaning process using supercritical CO2 may require the addition of surfactants. The aim of these additives is to increase the solvent power of CO2 which is a non-polar molecule and thus a poor solvent for any polar contamination that is generally encountered in industrial facilities, such as metals, metal oxides or organo-metallic compounds. Surfactants studied in this work are fluorinated siloxane polymers and hydrocarbonated copolymers. Whereas fluorinated molecules exhibit a better compatibility with supercritical CO2, purely hydrocarbonated molecules show a perfect compatibility with existing ultimate waste-treatment facilities. The final goal is to establish a reliable methodology for the process design in terms of surfactants properties and CCb-efficiency. The project will be carried out in cooperation with two research groups from France. The first group will perform experimental solubility measurements of surfactants in supercritical CO2 - These data will be modeled in Dortmund. The second group will use the results of the first two groups for the development of an industrial cleaning process.