Abstract
The continuous radical polymerization of butyl acrylate was studied using two sets of co-rotating twin screw extruder systems in order to understand the effects of operating conditions. With 2, 2′-Azobis (2, 4-dimethyl valeronitrile) as an initiator, the highest reaction conversion was obtained at a cylinder set temperature of 80°C. Both the reaction conversion and the molecular weight increased due to longer residence time when the monomer feed rate was decreased. Certain conditions of the polymerization resulted in a polymer with an average molecular weight Mw of over a million, while Mw/Mn was always from 2 to 3. The residual monomer was found to be eliminated by vacuum vent operating in a tandem extruder system which connected with the reactive extruder. Consequently, the polymerization should be performed at low temperature with the residual monomer removed by vacuum vent systems to obtain high molecular weight products.
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