Control of Molecular Weight Distribution in Emulsion Polymerization Using On-Line Reaction Calorimetry

The molecular weight distribution (MWD) of linear polymers was controlled based on on-line reaction calorimetry. A method to estimate the MWD from reaction calorimetry when chain transfer to a chain-transfer agent is the main termination event was developed and its robustness assessed by simulation....

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Vicente, Matias, BenAmor, Selwa, Gugliotta, Luis Marcelino, Leiza, Jose R., Asua, Jose M.
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2001
Country:Argentina
Institution:Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
Repository:CONICET Digital (CONICET)
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:ri.conicet.gov.ar:11336/27669
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/11336/27669
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Control of Molecular Weight Distribution
On-Line Calorimetric Data
Emulsion Polymerization
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/2.4
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/2
Description
Summary:The molecular weight distribution (MWD) of linear polymers was controlled based on on-line reaction calorimetry. A method to estimate the MWD from reaction calorimetry when chain transfer to a chain-transfer agent is the main termination event was developed and its robustness assessed by simulation. Following this method, the desired final MWD was decomposed in a series of instantaneous MWDs to be produced at different stages of the process. An optimization algorithm was used to calculate the set-point trajectories to produce the desired MWD in a minimum time. A nonlinear model based controller was used to track these trajectories. The control scheme was validated by preparing polystyrene latexes of widely different predefined MWD.