A physiochemical processing kinetics model for the vapor phase infiltration of polymers: measuring the energetics of precursor-polymer sorption, diffusion, and reaction.

Vapor phase infiltration (VPI) is a new approach for transforming polymers into organic-inorganic hybrid materials with unique properties. Here, we combine experimental measurements with phenomenological theory to develop a universal strategy for measuring, modeling, and predicting the processing kinetics of VPI. We apply our approach to the well-studied VPI system of trimethylaluminum (TMA) infiltrating poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) because the system undergoes both precursor-polymer diffusion and reaction.