A global existence theorem for the general coagulation–fragmentation equation with unbounded kernels

In this article an existence theorem is proved for the coagulation–fragmentation equation with unbounded kernel rates. Solutions are shown to be in the space X + = { c ∈ L 1 : ∫   0 ∞(1 + x )∣ c ( x )∣d x < ∞} whenever the kernels satisfy certain growth properties and the non‐negative initial data belong to X + . The proof is based on weak L 1 compactness methods applied to suitably chosen approximating equations.