Emulsion copolymerisation in a flexible continuously operated reactor

The performance of a pulsed packed column (PPC) has been investigated for t he continuous seeded emulsion copolymerisation of styrene and methyl acryla te. In the PPC, intensive radial mixing is combined with little axial mixin g. Intensive local mixing provides proper emulsification and high rates of heat transfer to the reactor wall. It has been demonstrated that the perfor mance of the PPC in terms of conversion and intermolecular chemical composi tion distribution approximates that of a batch process even for high pulsat ion velocities. Copolymers with a narrow composition distribution can be pr oduced in the PPC by feeding the more reactive monomer styrene to the react or contents at some axial positions in the column. Feed streams to adjust t he monomer composition in the reacting particles have been calculated with a comprehensive multimonomer mechanistic emulsion polymerisation model. The results of this work indicate that a wide variety of latex products can be produced in the PPC with stable operation and a high conversion. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.