Optimal Periodic Control of a Continuous `Living´ Anionic Polymerization. III. Presence of Impurities in the Monomer Feed

VEGA, J. R.; FRONTINI, G. L.; MEIRA, G. R.

JOURNAL OF APPLIED POLYMER SCIENCE

Año: 1991 vol. 42 p. 3181 - 3193

0021-8995

Previous publications have demonstrated that when ´living´ anionic polymerizations are carried out in continuous reactors under forced periodic operation of the feed flows then: (a) In the absence of impurities and within certain limitations, it is possible to produce polymers with any prespecified values of the number-average chain length, the polydispersity and the polymer production; and (b) even small concentrations of impurities in the monomer feed, drastically inhibit such a possibility. In this work, the optimal periodic control problem has been reformulated, including the presence of impurities. In all cases, the flexibility of the control is reduced with respect to the impurities-free case.