Continuous Tanks‐in‐Series Process for Free‐Radical Polymerization with Long‐Chain Branching and Scission: Effect of the Order of a Large Tank

Tanks‐in‐series model for free‐radical polymerization that involves the polymer transfer reactions, leading to both long‐chain branching and scission, is extended to account for differentξ i ≡ k p , i[ R • ] it ¯ ifor each tank, where the subscript i represents each value for the i th tank. Illustrative calculations are conducted for the cases with one large ξ n for the n th tank and the same ξ i for all i 's with i  ≠  n . The effect of the order of a large ξ n was investigated, by keeping the final conversion x N , average branch densityρ ¯ N, and scission densityη ¯ Nthe same, to find that the largest weight‐average degree of polymerization,P ¯ wis obtained for n  = 1. The full distributions of MW, the branching density, and the radii of gyration are also investigated to propose a novel reactor design strategy for the tower‐type multi‐zone reactors.