Investigations on the Anionic Polymerisation of Butadiene in Capillaries by Kinetic Measurements and Reactor Simulation

S Schulze, B. Cortese, M. Rupp, M.H.J.M. Croon, de, V. Hessel, J. Couet, J. Lang, E. Klemm

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

For the first time an anionic polymerisation of 1,3-butadiene as monomer is successfully transferred from semi-batch into a continuous microfluidic setup with comparable product properties. The molecular weight distribution or polydispersity (PDI) is commonly used as a key criterion for product quality. The steady state and the local resolution of a continuous setup provide the opportunity to investigate the progress of the PDI during anionic polymerisation. This work examines the influence of chemistry and fluid dynamics on the PDI of the product. Therefore a dedicated setup was designed to keep 1,3-butadiene in liquid phase while providing a pulsation free feed allowing for a constant liquid flow. With different settings the intrinsic kinetics is determined and a separation of initiation and propagation is validated experimentally for the simulations and their boundary conditions. To explain the experimental results a statistical and mass balance approach as ideal plug flow or ideal laminar flow model is discussed and compared to CFD calculations. Finally it is concluded which fluid dynamic and statistical weighting lead to the very low PDIs of 1.03 found in the experiments.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)381-395
JournalGreen Processing and Synthesis
Volume2
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2013

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