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Optimization of an industrial semibatch nylon 6 reactor
Author(s) -
Sareen R.,
Kulkarni M. R.,
Gupta S. K.
Publication year - 1995
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.1995.070570209
Subject(s) - monomer , product (mathematics) , polymerization , dimer , mathematics , polymer chemistry , degree (music) , set (abstract data type) , materials science , combinatorics , polymer , chemistry , thermodynamics , physics , computer science , organic chemistry , composite material , geometry , programming language , acoustics
An industrial semibatch nylon 6 reactor has been optimized using a one‐variable (at a time) search technique. The vapor release rate from the reactor and the final monomer conversion have been constrained to lie very close to the values currently present. The degree of polymerization of the product is , similarly, constrained to lie at a value of 152. The optimal pressure histories for two values of the jacket fluid temperature, T j , have been evaluated using two objective functions, I 1 and I 3 , namely, the total reaction time ( I 1 = t f ) and the concentration of the cyclic dimer ( I 3 = [ C 2 ] f ) in the product. It is observed that as T j is increased from 270 to 280°C, I 1 improves while I 3 worsens simultaneously. This suggests that these two optimal points lie on the Pareto set for the two‐objective function problem. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.