Temperature control of an aromatic polyamide batch reactor system

This work presents a case study invoking recommendation of the Fiber Divisi on of Union Chemical Laboratories on how to implement a control strategy of an MPD-I (Meta Phenylene Diamine-Isophthaloyl Chloride) batch reactor temp erature control system. In this study, a cascade temperature control system is used in which the reactor jacket temperature is used as an intermediate controlled variable. For the optimal reactor temperature trajectory, there will be a heat up period in the middle of the batch to prevent gel formati on inside the reactor. In addition, the fact that the reaction is exothermi c, particularly during the initial stage of the reaction, accounts for why a coolant is also needed to maintain the reactor temperature. The control s ystem is arranged in a split range fashion since the heat medium and coolan t are both used to regulate the reactor temperature. Several possible contr ol strategies are examined for this batch reactor temperature control syste m, among which a recommendation is made as to which one has the best closed -loop response and also maintains smooth control valve actions.