Reactors, Kinetics, and Catalysis

Modeling of two-phase polymerization of acrylamide in aqueous poly(ethylene glycol) solution

  1. Ting Lü,
  2. Guorong Shan*

Article first published online: 29 NOV 2010

DOI: 10.1002/aic.12459

Issue

AIChE Journal

AIChE Journal

Volume 57, Issue 9, pages 2493–2504, September 2011

Additional Information

How to Cite

Lü, T. and Shan, G. (2011), Modeling of two-phase polymerization of acrylamide in aqueous poly(ethylene glycol) solution. AIChE J., 57: 2493–2504. doi: 10.1002/aic.12459

Author Information

  1. State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering, Dept. of Chemical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China

*State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering, Dept. of Chemical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China

Publication History

  1. Issue published online: 3 AUG 2011
  2. Article first published online: 29 NOV 2010
  3. Accepted manuscript online: 7 OCT 2010 12:53PM EST
  4. Manuscript Revised: 14 AUG 2010
  5. Manuscript Received: 18 MAY 2010

Funded by

  • New Century Excellent Talent Project of Education Ministry. Grant Number: NCET-05-0512
  • National Natural Science Foundation of China. Grant Numbers: 20776125, 20876136

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Keywords:

  • aqueous two-phase polymerization;
  • partitioning;
  • kinetic model;
  • polyacrylamide;
  • poly(ethylene glycol)

Abstract

Two-phase polymerization of acrylamide (AM) has been successfully carried out in aqueous poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) solution with 2,2′-azobis[2-(2-imidazolin-2-yl)propane] dihydrochloride (AIBI) as the initiator. A new heterogeneous kinetic model has been developed based on the partitioning of components between the two phases. It was found that polymerization proceeded in both the continuous and dispersed phases, even though the latter was the dominating polymerization locus. Besides the initiator, monomer concentration, and polymerization temperature, the PEG concentration also significantly influences the polymerization rate. With increasing concentration of PEG, gel effects in the aqueous PAM droplets were enhanced and more monomer preferred to polymerize inside the droplets, hence, the polymerization kinetics accelerated. The proposed model can successfully predict the composition of each phase and the polymerization kinetics during the aqueous two-phase polymerization over a wide range of various reactions conditions. © 2010 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2011

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