Supercritical hydrogenation of polybutadiene at conditions selected from PVT data

M. MENOSSI; J.M. MILANESIO; A.E. CIOLINO; L.M. QUINZANI; M.S. ZABALOY

Mar del Plata

Congreso; SLAP 2018: XVI Latin-American Polymer Symposium, CIP 2018: XIV Iberoamerican Polymer Congress; 2018

INTEMA-CONICET-UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE MAR DEL PLATA

Linear low-density polyethylene (PE) with a polydispersity index (PD) close to 1 can be obtained by hydrogenating polybutadienes (PBs) with narrow molecular weight distributions. In the conventional hydrogenation of unsaturated heavy compounds, the system presents, at least, two fluid phases during the reaction progress. This could be overcome by using a supercritical solvent o solvent mixture as reaction medium thus conducting the reaction under single fluid phase conditions. To hydrogenate the PB under fluid homogeneity conditions, the solvent (or solvent mixture) should be able to simultaneously dissolve the PB, the H2 and the reaction products. The goals of this work are: (1) to obtain new PVT data for the quaternary system ?n-pentane (C5) + dimethyl ether (DME) + H2 + PB?; (2) to use these data to define proper hydrogenation conditions; and (3) to carry out the corresponding PB hydrogenation experiments, considering the influence of the initial H2/PB proportion and of the stirring of the reactive mixture.