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Control Strategy and Comparison of Tuning Methods for Continuous Lactide Ring‐Opening Polymerization
Author(s) -
Costa Liborio I.,
Trommsdorff Ulla
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
chemical engineering and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.403
H-Index - 81
eISSN - 1521-4125
pISSN - 0930-7516
DOI - 10.1002/ceat.201600235
Subject(s) - operability , lactide , controller (irrigation) , polymerization , polylactic acid , process (computing) , monomer , ring (chemistry) , process engineering , process control , computer science , control theory (sociology) , control (management) , engineering , environmental science , materials science , chemistry , polymer , reliability engineering , organic chemistry , composite material , agronomy , biology , operating system , artificial intelligence
Abstract Polylactic acid is industrially produced by ring‐opening polymerization of lactide. This reaction is extremely sensitive to the level of monomer contaminants, thus posing some challenges for the operability of continuous processes. A control strategy was designed and the corresponding controller parameters were determined using gProms simulations by applying the Ziegler‐Nichols, Tyreus‐Luyben, and Cohen‐Coon methods. The simulation results show that the proposed strategy is effective in restoring the targeted process conditions after a sudden change in the level of contaminants, with the Cohen‐Coon controller providing the best results. Additionally, the simulations demonstrate that the use of automatic process control significantly reduces the pressure rise along the reactors after a feed disturbance, thus ensuring safer plant operation.