Bulk copolymerization of styrene-acrylic esters: some analysis and design considerations

Abstract

A common framework for the analysis of styrene-acrylic ester systems has been developed by analyzing the pertinent kinetic information. This is shown to lead to a well defined strategy for the design of copolymerization reactors especially in the industrially relevant high conversion region. The existence of stable steady states and its influence on the system parameters has been illustrated for the case of a continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR). A novel strategy of a CSTR operated with a recycle is proposed. This is shown to lead to an operation in the unique steady state with the added advantage of a high conversion and uniform copolymer composition. This would seem to be the first such analysis in the high conversion region.