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Modeling the Effects of Reactor Backmixing on RAFT Polymerization
Author(s) -
Bitsch Boris,
BarnerKowollik Christopher,
Zhu Shiping
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
macromolecular reaction engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.37
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 1862-8338
pISSN - 1862-832X
DOI - 10.1002/mren.201000034
Subject(s) - raft , chemistry , kinetics , polymerization , monomer , molar mass distribution , chain transfer , reversible addition−fragmentation chain transfer polymerization , polymer , thermodynamics , radical polymerization , chemical engineering , organic chemistry , quantum mechanics , engineering , physics
The effects of reactor backmixing on the outcome of RAFT polymerizations are examined. The kinetic model for the RAFT reaction is based on the first principle of mass balances and the method of moments. Two reactor models were applied for the simulation of backmixing, i.e., a PFTR with loop and multiple CSTRs in series. The models predict the behavior of monomer conversion, molecular weights, their distributions as well as the polydispersities for various chain types at different levels of backmixing. Both models demonstrated that a significant impact of reactor backmixing on RAFT kinetics and polymer molecular weight development exists.