Gas Permeation in Polymers at High Pressure

Elastomers are widely used for high pressure seals particularly in the oil and gas industry. However, there is a lack of a fundamental understanding of the nature of the polymers used in systems at high pressure. This fundamental lack of knowledge results in limited operational life times and duty cycles of the seals that are both wastes operational time and can be financially restrictive. This project will explore the gas permeation behaviour of elastomers with graphene nanocomposite barrier layers in order to understand the behaviour at high pressures and elevated temperatures. The project will include determining methods to incorporate graphene into polymer matrices, thin film layer processing of elastomers, as well as high pressure/elevated temperature gas permeation studies. Ultimately, we aim to reduce the overall rate of gas permeation through the nanocomposite coated elastomer seals. In addition, we aim to derive the underlying mechanism for the permeation behaviour in these gas barrier layers.