Propene bulk polymerization kinetics: Role of prepolymerization and hydrogen

J.T.M. Pater, G. Weickert, Willibrordus Petrus Maria van Swaaij

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademic

33 Citations (Scopus)
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Abstract

An experimental setup for the polymerization of liquid propylene was used to carry out main polymerizations with and without a prepolymerization step. Two types of prepolymerization are introduced: at a constant temperature and at rapidly increasing reactor temperatures. With the present catalyst system, at high polymerization temperatures, a prepolymerization step will increase polymerization rate. Hydrogen was used to control the molecular weight of the product. The polymerization reactor was used in combination with a gas chromatograph to determine the vapor-liquid equilibrium (VLE) of the propylene-hydrogen system. Measurements are compared to predictions of different equations of state. The Peng-Robinson equation of state is best able to describe the VLE for this binary system. A temperature-dependent interaction parameter was derived from the fits to the measured data.
Original languageUndefined
Pages (from-to)180-193
JournalAIChE journal
Volume49
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2003

Keywords

  • IR-59715

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