Dynamic Modeling of Vinyl Chloride Suspension Polymerization in a Continuous Oscillatory Baffled Reactor

Abstract

In the present work, a phenomenological model built to represent the suspension polymerization of vinyl chloride in a continuous oscillatory baffled reactor is presented for the first time. Following a previous work (Silva et al., Chemical Engineering Science, 288, 119845, 2024), a tanks-in-series model is employed to represent the reactor and a backflow stream is also considered to simulate backmixing. The intrinsic heterogeneous behavior of vinyl chloride polymerization adds model complexity in comparison to vinyl acetate polymerization reported in the literature. Moreover, the stronger gel effect also makes the temperature control difficult since a higher number of cooling jackets is required to keep a uniform temperature profile. The influence of residence time on reactor operation is investigated. Furthermore, the effects of initiator type and injection points on the polymerization rates and polymer properties are evaluated and shown to influence the process operation significantly.