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On‐line determination of the conversion in a styrene bulk polymerization batch reactor using near‐infrared spectroscopy
Author(s) -
Lousberg H. H. A.,
Boelens H. F. M.,
Le Comte E. P.,
Hoefsloot H. C. J.,
Smilde A. K.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
journal of applied polymer science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.575
H-Index - 166
eISSN - 1097-4628
pISSN - 0021-8995
DOI - 10.1002/app.10241
Subject(s) - monomer , polymerization , batch reactor , bulk polymerization , styrene , molar mass , polymer , calibration , materials science , analytical chemistry (journal) , infrared spectroscopy , chemistry , polymer chemistry , chromatography , radical polymerization , copolymer , organic chemistry , composite material , catalysis , mathematics , statistics
Abstract A fast on‐line method for measuring the monomer conversion of a styrene batch polymerization reaction with near‐infrared spectroscopy (NIR) has been developed. Multivariate calibration was performed, using polymer samples having temperatures around the set point of the batch reactor (75–85°C) and monomer conversions up to 35%. The calibration model was built in such a way that the effect of the temperature on the predicted conversion of the sample was minimized. The method was validated in a number of batch runs. In these runs, the batch temperature and molar mass distributions of the polymer were varied. At‐line size‐exclusion chromatography was used as a reference method for measuring the monomer conversion. Results show that on‐line conversion monitoring with NIR offered overall an excellent accuracy (∼ 0.32% conversion). For high and low monomer conversions a small bias in the predicted conversion is present. The method proved to be insensitive to both relative large changes (10°C) of the batch temperature and to considerable changes of the molar mass distribution of the polymer. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 84: 90–98, 2002; DOI 10.1002/app.10241