Molecular dynamics simulation of gas diffusion behavior in polyethylene terephthalate/aluminium/polyethylene interface

Abstract

Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were performed to estimate the diffusion coefficients of O₂ and H₂O molecules in polyethylene terephthalate/aluminum/polyethylene interface at the temperature of 298 K. It came out that the diffusion coefficient of gasses in the interface is smaller than that of a single polymer, and the diffusion coefficients compare well with experimental data as well as previously published work. Furthermore, the diffusion coefficients of H₂O molecules in the interface are preferable to that of O₂ molecules. Interestingly, the largest diffusion coefficient was detected in the polyethylene terephthalate/aluminum(1 0 0)/polyethylene interface, while the smallest value of the diffusion coefficients was found in the polyethylene terephthalate/aluminum(1 1 1)/polyethylene interface. Calculation and analysis of the interaction between aluminum and polymers indicated that the interaction of polymer/aluminum(1 1 0) has the most interface strength, and crystal density of the metal surface has a definite effect on the planar interface energy. What’s more, the figure of gas molecule concentration is further resulted that the interface make contribution to adsorption of gas molecules. Moreover, the diffusion is belonging to the Einstein diffusion in the multilayer materials, and this work provides some key clues to improve the performance of polymer materials.

Keywords:

• Polyethylene terephthalate (PET)
• polyethylene (PE)
• interfacial energy
• diffusion coefficients
• molecular dynamics (MD)

Acknowledgements

The authors also appreciate the efforts by the Journal Editor for editing this paper.