Scale‐Up of Emulsion Polymerization Reactors Part II – Simulations and Interpretations

Abstract

A computational framework, consisting of a turbulent computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation coupled to a multi‐zonal population balance is used to efficiently simulate the scale‐up of a semi‐batch emulsion polymerization, specifically one where the mixing issues are confined over a short period of time. Fluent™ CFD software is used to generate flow fields inside a series of reactors of varying production scale; these flow fields are subsequently used to generate a multi‐zonal grid. The effects of reactor scale and inhomogeneous mixing on the latex particle size distribution are simulated by running a detailed emulsion polymerization model on the multi‐zonal grid. In this paper, the second of two parts, the capabilities of the framework are demonstrated by simulating the scale‐up of a semi‐batch styrene emulsion polymerization.