Rapid process refinement for the development of complex solution copolymers

The industrial manufacture of specialty free radical solution copolymers (FRPs) requires use of a variety of solvents and co-monomers based on the desired properties and end-use. The polymer composition, polymerization solvent, and process parameters have a significant impact on polymer properties such as copolymer composition and polymer molecular weight distribution (MWD). The scale-up and trouble-shooting of copolymerization processes is a significant challenge for the specialty polymers industry due to short project time-scales, limited resources available for each project, and the use of newly developed proprietary monomers. We present approaches that combine process systems and experimental approaches to support data and knowledge-based decisions in the context of live projects under commercial time constraints with only limited data available. These approaches are used for the evaluation and improvement of a batch process operating under reflux conditions that exhibits a large change in solvent boiling point due to the use of high boiling monomers. The approaches allow rapid process refinement and include thermodynamics and heat transfer considerations decoupled from the complexity of reaction kinetics and chemistry with assumptions on heat release rates. Controllability analysis can be carried out at different stages of the batch, sensitivity to the selected solvent tested, and recommendations made on solvent use and process conditions. In addition, we also present an innovative, sparse matrix-based representation of chain length dependent rates that has potential to deliver rapid solutions without loss of detail of MWD.