Experimental design sequential generation and overall D-efficiency criterion for electron beam grafting of corn starch

Abstract

An experimental investigation of the electron beam irradiation induced grafting of acrylamide onto corn starch was performed. In this way the synthesis of water-soluble copolymers having flocculation abilities is realized. The acrylamide monomer provides a polar graft side chain which turns it into a hydrophilic copolymer. The robust engineering approach was implemented for the estimation of models for the means and the variances of the investigated quality parameters in production conditions, aiming the assurance of low toxicity of the synthesised copolymer, process economic efficiency, copolymer efficiency in the flocculation process and its good solubility in water. In order to improve the accuracy of the estimated models, performing new experiments was planned, based on the sequentially generated D-optimal designs. An approach for the generation of such designs for several quality parameters is presented.