Measurement of Thermophysical Properties of Water-Absorbent Polymer

Abstract

In this study, an unsteady heat flux method is applied to determine thermophysical properties of water absorbent polymer. Effective thermal conductivity and diffusivity are measured both for dry and wet polymer. The moisture content is varied from 0 to 100 in mass ratio of water to dry polymer with temperature range 293K to 353K. No significant effect of the temperature dependency on the thermophysical properties is observed for dry polymer, but both the thermal conductivity and diffusivity increases with the mass ratio.