Design and Operation of Copolymerisation Reactors through Modelling and Nonlinear Analysis

The development of an appropriate model for copolymerisation reactors that can describe the process behaviour over the complete range of conversion contributes to a better understanding of the polymerisation process, helps to avoid unsafe operating conditions and to develop operational and optimizing control strategies. The aim in this work is to study the design and operational issues of a copolymerisation reactor through a systematic model-based (open-loop) nonlinear analysis. The performance of two firstprinciples models are compared with respect to the steady state and dynamic behaviour of the polymerisation process. The analysis highlights the influence of the reaction mechanism, the transport phenomena, the process design and operating conditions on the polymer grade and the production rate.