Macromolecular Reaction Engineering

Cover: The main components of polymer reactor models are discussed with illustrative examples, providing an industrial perspective for the development of such models and their application. Specific challenges are discussed in the context of articles and books that the authors have found useful, and typical model outputs are shown. Further details can be found in the article by P. A. Mueller,* J. R. Richards, and J. P. Congalidis on page 261, which is dedicated to the memory of the late Dr. George A. Kalfas of DuPont.

This article provides an industrial perspective for the development of polymer reaction engineering models and their application to create new materials, products, and improved or novel processes. Specific challenges are discussed in the context of articles and books that the authors have found useful. The main components of a polymer reactor model are discussed with illustrative examples and typical model outputs are shown.

The handling of delayed measurements is incorporated into three filters of the UT family by means of a two-timescale approach. A comprehensive analysis of the filters' performances in polymer processes is carried out, showing that these filters behave better than classical techniques such as the Extended Kalman Filter. One of them, the Unscented Kalman Filter, stands out from the other two by requiring less computational time.

Polyethylene nanocomposites were produced through in situ polymerization using (nBuCp)₂ZrCl₂supported on silica nanospheres synthesized by the sol–gel method. Catalytic activities for support systems were comparable with homogeneous polymerizations and the polymer obtained by heterogeneous catalysts presented uniform particles with narrow particle size distribution.

For relatively large polymer particles greater than the cross-over diameter, our model for RAFT living miniemulsion polymerisation with pseudo-bulk kinetics matches reasonably well with the experimental data. The predicted key polymer properties also compare well with experiments. We determined three transition points for polymerisation in pseudo-bulk regime, which include the transitional behaviour of RAFT equilibrium processes and the RAFT agent concentration.