Inline dielectric monitoring of MMA/BuA copolymerization reactions

Abstract

Dielectric analysis has become an effective instrumental means for monitoring a variety of polymer resin processing properties. This is because the dielectric properties are sensitive to the changes of resins properties linked to the mobility of the polymer molecules. In the present work, dielectric analysis is used for in-line evaluation of monomer conversion and overall conversion during MMA/BuA solution copolymerization carried out in batch. An empirical model was derived to correlate the dielectric loss factor and monomer conversion. The effects of inhibitor and MMA concentration on the dielectric properties are also investigated. It is shown here that this technique allows the successful real-time evaluation of monomer conversion in labscale MMA/BuA solution polymerization reactors, but that limitations do exist, and in particular the need for experiment-specific calibrations.