Hydrogenation of polybutadiene at high pressure and related PVT behavior

ANDRES CIOLINO; JUAN MANUEL MILANESIO; MARCELO SANTIAGO ZABALOY; MATIAS MENOSSI; LIDIA MARIA QUINZANI

Villa Carlos Paz

Conferencia; XI Iberoamerican Conference on Phase Equilibria and Fluids Properties for Process Desing (EQUIFASE); 2018

IPQA-CONICET-UNC

Linear low-density polyethylene of low polidispersivity (PD) index could be obtained by hydrogenating low PD index polybutadienes (PBs). In conventional hydrogenation processes, the system always presents, at least, two fluid phases during the reaction progress. The presence of an interphase implies lower mass transfer rates. This could be overcome by using a supercritical fluid as reaction medium, so that the hydrogenation process occurs, in principle, under single fluid phase conditions. To hydrogenate the PB under supercritical conditions, the solvent (or solvent mixture) should be able to simultaneously dissolve the PB, the hydrogen (H2) and the reaction products. The high asymmetry of the PB+H2 reactive mixture implies a high immiscibility level in the absence of the supercritical solvent or solvent mixture. The goals of this work are: (1) to find the conditions under which a number of ?PB+solvent mixture+H2? systems (no catalyst) are homogeneous; and (2) to carry out the hydrogenation of PB under the single fluid phase conditions previously identified. With regard to goal #(1), we obtained in this work new experimental data for the system n-pentane(C5)+dimethyl ether(DME)+H2+PB and, and with regard to goal #(2), we performed hydrogenation experiments under conditions not covered in previous work.