Solution of final stages of polyethylene terephthalate reactors using orthogonal collocation technique

Abstract

The formation of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) has been modeled to have reactions with monofunctional compounds, redistribution, and cyclization reactions in addition to the usual polycondensation step. In the final stages, the overall polymerization is mass-transfer controlled and solution of the reactor performance equations have been determined through the orthogonal collocation technique. This technique is found to be considerably more efficient for PET reactors compared to the finite difference method; the use of ten collocation points gives results which are close to the exact solution.