Development of high performance operational strategies for polymerization reactor

This work presents the modeling and control of the temperature of a CSTR po lymerization reactor connected to a semi-flooded horizontal condenser. The objectives of this work were to evaluate the cooling potential and the deve lopment of different algorithms to control the reactor temperature where bu lk polymerization reactions take place via styrene free radicals. The contr ol algorithms studied were classic PI, long-range predictive GPC and predic tive-adaptive STGPC (GPC connected to the identification algorithm 'RLS'). The results obtained here show that the system provides quick, efficient an d highly competitive refrigeration compared with other systems when this sy stem is associated with a control algorithm which adapts perfectly to its d ynamics characteristics. The new approach presented in this work, which ass ociates the system 'CSTR + semi-flodded horizontal condenser' to the contro l algorithm (GPC and STGPC), makes the process highly competitive regarding refrigeration and performance. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights r eserved.