Emulsion copolymerisation in a flexible continuously operated reactor

The performance of a pulsed packed column (PPC) has been investigated for the continuous seeded emulsion copolymerisation of styrene and methyl acrylate. In the PPC, intensive radial mixing is combined with little axial mixing. Intensive local mixing provides proper emulsification and high rates of heat transfer to the reactor wall. It has been demonstrated that the performance of the PPC in terms of conversion and intermolecular chemical composition distribution approximates that of a batch process even for high pulsation velocities. Copolymers with a narrow composition distribution can be produced in the PPC by feeding the more reactive monomer styrene to the reactor contents at some axial positions in the column. Feed streams to adjust the monomer composition in the reacting particles have been calculated with a comprehensive multimonomer mechanistic emulsion polymerisation model. The results of this work indicate that a wide variety of latex products can be produced in the PPC with stable operation and a high conversion.