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Language: English

Conflict of Interest: In relation to this article, we declare that there is no conflict of interest.

Publication history: Received November 15, 2007
Accepted October 28, 2008

This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Dynamics and stability of ethylene polymerization in multizone circulating reactors

Nayef Mohamed Ghasem^† Wee Lee Ang¹ Mohamed Azlan Hussain²

Department of Chemical & Petroleum Engineering, UAE University, Al Ain, P.O. Box 17555, UAE, United Arab Emirates ¹VSR Automation S/B, 3, Jalan Astaka U8/83, Section U8, Bukit Jelutong Industrial Park, 40150 Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia ²Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering, May 2009, 26(3), 603-611(9), 10.1007/s11814-009-0102-1

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Abstract

Multizone circulating bed reactors (MZCR) have the exclusive characteristics of producing polymers of different molecular weights in a single particle. Traditional fluidized bed reactors, on the other hand, can produce only one kind of molecular weight with relatively narrow distribution. A dynamic model for the MZCR is used to illustrate the basic dynamic behavior of the new reactor design used for polyethylene production. The model is used to study the copolymerization of ethylene with butene. Several parameter sensitivity analyses are performed to show the computer-simulated time responses for reactor temperature, number-average molecular weight, weight-average molecular weight, catalyst feed rate and the monomer/comonomer concentration along the reactor length. At certain operating conditions dynamic instability is observed and the results for the effect of cooling water temperature, catalyst feed rate, monomer and comonomer initial feed concentration on the reactor temperature and polymer molecular weight reveal that the system is very sensitive to disturbances in the heat exchanger coolant temperature. Also, at some operating conditions, the reactor temperature oscillates above the polymer melting temperature. Temperature runaway above polymer softening point is a serious problem which may cause polymer melting and hence reactor shutdown. The oscillatory behavior of the reactor temperature necessitates a suitable temperature control scheme to be installed.

Keywords

Polyethylene Multi Zone Circulating Reactor Ethylene Polymerization

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