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Modeling of two‐phase polymerization of acrylamide in aqueous poly(ethylene glycol) solution
Author(s) -
Lü Ting,
Shan Guorong
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
aiche journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.958
H-Index - 167
eISSN - 1547-5905
pISSN - 0001-1541
DOI - 10.1002/aic.12459
Subject(s) - polymerization , polymer chemistry , precipitation polymerization , ethylene glycol , monomer , aqueous solution , bulk polymerization , chain growth polymerization , solution polymerization , chemistry , chemical engineering , kinetics , radical polymerization , kinetic chain length , peg ratio , materials science , polymer , organic chemistry , physics , finance , quantum mechanics , engineering , economics
Two‐phase polymerization of acrylamide (AM) has been successfully carried out in aqueous poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) solution with 2,2′‐azobis[2‐(2‐imidazolin‐2‐yl)propane] dihydrochloride (AIBI) as the initiator. A new heterogeneous kinetic model has been developed based on the partitioning of components between the two phases. It was found that polymerization proceeded in both the continuous and dispersed phases, even though the latter was the dominating polymerization locus. Besides the initiator, monomer concentration, and polymerization temperature, the PEG concentration also significantly influences the polymerization rate. With increasing concentration of PEG, gel effects in the aqueous PAM droplets were enhanced and more monomer preferred to polymerize inside the droplets, hence, the polymerization kinetics accelerated. The proposed model can successfully predict the composition of each phase and the polymerization kinetics during the aqueous two‐phase polymerization over a wide range of various reactions conditions. © 2010 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2011