Predictive control of average molar mass and composition distributions for free radical polymerization via online monitoring

POLY 105

Tomasz Kreft, tkreft@tulane.edu1, Gemma González García, ggonzalez022@ikasle.ehu.es2, Alina M Alb, aalb@tulane.edu1, Jose Carlos de la Cal, jc.delacal@ehu.es2, Jose M Asua, jm.asua@ehu.es2, and Wayne F. Reed, wreed@tulane.edu1. (1) Physics Department, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70118, (2) Chemical Engineering, University of the Basque Country, 20018 Donostia/San Sebastián, Spain
This work involves predictive control of average molar mass and composition distributions for free radical polymerization, based on kinetics obtained by ACOMP (automatic continuous online monitoring of polymerization reactions). With appropriate computations these are predictably controlled by selected flows of reagents into the reactor. As a prelude to copolymerization control free radical homopolymerization was first addressed. Computations to predict kinetics and mass were made for different reagent feed profiles; e,g, stepped initiator feed to produce multimodal masses, and specific monomer feeds, both to maintain a constant weight average molar mass Mw, and to make Mw increase. Meanwhile, batch free radical polyelectrolyte copolymerizations were performed to obtain the kinetic information needed for predictive control of mass and composition. This is the first step toward full, automatic feedback control where all the characteristics will be obtained on-line and the reagent feed adjusted automatically as needed, including the case of emulsion polymerization reactions.