Controlled Rheology of Polypropylene with Segregated Peroxide Addition. Simultaneous Tailoring of Melt Index and Molecular Weight Distribution

ASTEASUAIN, MARIANO; SARMORIA, C; BRANDOLIN, ADRIANA

Rio de Janeiro

Congreso; 41st International Polymer Congress, MACRO 2006; 2006

Comité Organizador

Controlled rheology (CR) of polypropylene with segregated peroxide addition, in which only a portion of the extruder throughput is degraded and subsequently mixed with the undegraded portion, has been shown to allow independent control of melt index and molecular weight distribution shape. In this work, a previous model of the CR of polypropylene that is able to predict the complete MWD, is updated for segregated peroxide addition and MI prediction. The model was embedded in an optimization framework formulated for simultaneous tailoring of melt index and detailed shape of the MWD. An illustrative example was solved in which optimal operating conditions that allowed close matching of the desired melt index value and high molecular weight tail of the distribution are obtained.