TY - JOUR
AU - Soong, David S.
AB - Oxygen injection has been proposed and experimentally demonstrated as an effective control measure for limiting the rate of heat release and altering the rate of polymerization in emulsion processes. A detailed mathematical model has been previously developed to describe the system behavior with and without oxygen injection. A simple lab scale apparatus was constructed and run extensively. Only trace quantities of oxygen are needed to inhibit the reaction completely. The facile response makes this method attractive for fast temperature control. However, because of the rapid penetration of dissolved oxygen into the polymer particles, growing radical chains are terminated prematurely, lowering product molecular weights. To minimize this detrimental effect, pulsed oxygen control is used and extensive experimental work was performed to determine the effects of controller set points on molecular weight. Moderate oxygen flows and moderate set point temperatures are found to give the optimal response without significant lowering of the final molecular weight. Injected quantities agree well with the order‐of‐magnitude sparging calculations needed to completely stop initiation. However, complete agreement between model simulations and experimental results was not reached due to an unmeasured loss of monomer from the reactor. Chain transfer to monomer is found to be important in modeling the polymer molecular weight. It has, however, a negligible effect on the reaction rate.
TI - Control of free‐radical emulsion polymerization of methyl methacrylate by oxygen injection. II. Experimental study
JO - Journal of Applied Polymer Science
DO - 10.1002/app.1985.070300923
DA - 1985-09-01
UR - https://www.deepdyve.com/lp/wiley/control-of-free-radical-emulsion-polymerization-of-methyl-methacrylate-rP4FBJk5HM
SP - 3841
EP - 3856
VL - 30
IS - 9
DP - DeepDyve
ER -