Dynamic Modeling of ?Living? Free Radical Polymerization Processes in Tubular Reactors

ASTEASUAIN, MARIANO; SARMORIA, CLAUDIA; BRANDOLIN, ADRIANA

Viña del Mar, Chile

Simposio; Cuarto Simposio Chileno-Argentino de Polímeros, ARCHIPOL 2007; 2007

Comité Organizador

?Living? (or controlled) free radical polymerization is a novel polymerization process that combines advantages of traditional living polymerization and free radical polymerization. This technique allows for detailed control of the structure of the polymer chains (i.e. narrow and multimodal MWDs, block, graft, and star polymers, etc.), and is capable both of polymerizing several monomers and of tolerating a greater amount of impurities than ionic polymerization.   Continuous tubular reactors show great potential for this process because of their capability of influencing the polymer molecular structure by proper manipulation of design and operating conditions. However, studies of ?living? free radical polymerization in tubular reactors are scarce. In a previous work, we presented a steady state model of a nitroxide-mediated ?living? free radical polymerization (NMLP) of styrene in bulk in a tubular reactor. This model focused on the prediction of the complete MWD, for which the probability generating function (pgf) transformation was employed. The model considered variation of physical and transport properties along the axial distance, and proved to be efficient for implementation of optimization problems. In this work, this model is extended in order to consider dynamic operation. Dynamic models are essential for the analysis of optimal policies for grade transition, start up and shut down operations and for process control.