Mathematical Modeling of a CSTR for the Production of High-Impact Polystyrene: Prediction of RTD through CFD

GAMBA IGNACIO; ESTENOZ DIANA; MÁRQUEZ DAMIÁN SANTIAGO; NIGRO NORBERTO; STORTI MARIO

Cordoba, Argentina

Congreso; ARCHIPOL 2009, “V Argentine-Chilean Polymer Symposium" and "VIII Argentine Polymer Symposium", "IX Chilean Symposium of Polymer Chemistry and Physical-Chemistry"; 2009

Archipol 2009

    The industrial HIPS process involves 4 stages:Dissolution,     Prepolymerization,     Finishing,    andDevolatilization. The Prepolymerization is carried out ina series of continuous stirred reactors and the Finishingstage is unstirred. During the prepolymerization stagethe morphology is developed and specifically during thephase inversion period. In this stage the fluid-dynamicphenomena is vital since it affects the particle size andthe final morphology of the material.    In this work, the continuous prepolymerizationreactor for the production of HIPS is modeledconsidering the fluid-dynamics and kinetic phenomena.The model is based on a previous homogeneous model(Estenoz et al., 1996; Luciani et al.,2009) and includesthe prediction of the fluid-dynamics (FD). To this effect,the commercial Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)package, FLUENT 6.3 (FLUENT Inc., 2006) is used.