A Population Balance Model for Butyl Acrylate Emulsion Polymerization

Abstract

The goal of this work was to develop a population balance model with good predictive capabilities for the emulsion polymerization of butyl acrylate in a well-mixed and isothermal batch reactor. The model incorporated micellar nucleation and employed pseudo-bulk kinetics. The partial differential equations describing population balances were solved efficiently using orthogonal collocation. The model's reliability was demonstrated by successfully simulating the experimental data for a number of variables which included the number of particles formed at different emulsifier and initiator amounts, variation of particle diameter with time and the variation of conversion with time at one initiator amount and one emulsifier amount. Model predictions were in good agreement with the experimental data.