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Evaluation of the Chain Length Distribution in Free‐Radical Polymerization, 2. Emulsion Polymerization
Author(s) -
Butté Alessandro,
Storti Giuseppe,
Morbidelli Massimo
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
macromolecular theory and simulations
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.37
H-Index - 56
eISSN - 1521-3919
pISSN - 1022-1344
DOI - 10.1002/1521-3919(20020101)11:1<37::aid-mats37>3.0.co;2-3
Subject(s) - polymerization , emulsion polymerization , radical polymerization , chain transfer , kinetic chain length , polymer , living polymerization , work (physics) , distribution (mathematics) , monomer , polymer chemistry , kinetics , thermodynamics , materials science , chemistry , mathematics , physics , organic chemistry , classical mechanics , mathematical analysis
Emulsion polymerization is characterized by the segregation of the active chains in the polymer particles, which can strongly affect the kinetics of the process and in particular the chain length distribution (CLD). To correctly take into account these effects, a model has been developed which is constituted by a set of population balance equations based on the well‐known concept of distinguished particle distribution. The model has been solved with the discretization technique developed in the first part of the work, which allows the directly evaluation of the CLD. The obtained model has been used to calculate the CLD resulting from complex polymerization kinetic mechanisms, such as, for example, those of living free‐radical polymerization. In all cases rather accurate results have been obtained, including situations characterized by bimodal CLDs, where indirect methods, typically based on the method of moments, fail.