Polyolefin Reaction Engineering

Written by two world-renowned authors pooling their experience from industry and academia, this book adopts a unique engineering approach using elegant mathematical modeling techniques to relate polymerization conditions, reactor and catalyst type to polyolefin properties. Readers thus learn how to design and optimize polymerization conditions to produce polyolefins with a given microstructure. The book concludes with a discussion of such recent developments as combined metallocene catalysts and polyolefin/clay nanocomposites.

Joao B. P. Soares is Professor in the Department of Chemical, Engineering at the University of Waterloo, Canada. He has also worked as a research and development engineer at Pronor, COPENE, and Polibrasil in Brazil. He obtained his PhD from McMaster University working with Professor A. E. Hamielec. He has authored more than 160 articles in refereed journals and 11 book chapters. Professor Soares is a Fellow of the Chemical Institute of Canada and is the recipient of the Premier's Research Excellence Award, the Union Carbide/Dow Innovation Award, and the Syncrude/CSChE Canada Innovation Award for contributions to Chemical Engineering under the age of 40. He is also Editor-in-Chief for the Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering and a member of the Executive Advisory Board of Wiley-VCH Macromolecular Journals. He is a consultant for several polyolefin-manufacturing companies in Canada, USA, Europe Asia, and Brazil. Timothy F. L McKenna is a Directeur de Recherche (DRsub2/sub) at the Laboratoire de Chimie, Catalyse, Polymres et Procds (Csub2/subPsub2/sub, a CNRS laboratory), in Villeurbanne, France. He obtained his PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, then moved to France to work with Elf-Aquitaine an Atochem on modeling polyethylene particle growth. After three years with Elf-Atochem, he joined the academic world in 1993 at the Laboratoire de Chimie et Precds de Polymrisation (LCPP, CNRS). Since then Dr. McKenna has authored or co-authored more than 180 papers and 8 book chapters, and is a consultant at companies in Europe, the middle East and Asia. He is currently an active participant in the Dutch Polymer Institute (DPI), an associate editor of the Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering, and serves in the International Advisory Board of 2 Macromolecular Journals, and of Chemical Engineering Technology, all from Wiley-VCH. Professors Soares and McKenna have given in-house industrial short courses on Polyolefin Reaction Engineering to many polyolefin manufacturing companies worldwide. They also offer an annual short course on the same topic open to industrial and academic participants.

INTRODUCTION TO POLYOLEFIN PROPERTIES AND APPLICATIONS Types of Polyolefins and Their Properties An Introduction to Polyolefin Reactors Influence of Polyolefin Microstructure on Physical and Rheological Properties CATALYSTS FOR OLEFIN POLYMERIZATION Principles of Coordination Polymerization Ziegler-Natta Catalysts Phillips Catalysts Metallocene Catalysts Late Transition Metal Catalysts COORDINATION POLYMERIZATION KINETICS AND MECHANISM Homopolymerization Copolymerization Long Chain Branch Formation Polypropylene and Stereoregularity Laboratory Reactors used for Catalyst Testing and Polymerization Kinetics Determination Polymerization Kinetics for Multiple Site-Type Catalysts MATHEMATICAL MODELLING OF MICROSCALE PHENOMENA Population Balances The Method of Moments The Method of Instantaneous Distributions Monte Carlo Simulation Techniques MATHEMATICAL MODELLING OF MESOSCALE PHENOMENA Catalyst Particle Break-up, Polymer Particle Growth, and Replication Factor Mesoscale Model Classification The Problem of Heat and Mass Transfer Limitations in Heterogeneous Ziegler-Natta and Supported Metallocene Catalysts A Historical Review: Physical Models from the Solid Core to the Multigrain Model Modern Models for Inter- and Intraparticle Mass and Heat Transfer Resistances Models for Polymer Particle Morphology Development MATHEMATICAL MODELING OF MACROSCALE PHENOMENA Dynamic Models for Industrial Polymerization Reactors Residence Time Distribution Polymer Particle Size Distribution Models for Process Control MODEL PARAMETER ESTIMATION Techniques for Semi-Batch Reactors Techniques for High-Throughput Reactors Techniques for Continuous Industrial Reactors Techniques for Stop-Flow Reactors POLYOLEFIN MICROSTRUCTURAL CHARACTERIZATION Importance of Polyolefin Characterization Gel Permeation Chromatography Temperature Rising Elution Fractionation Crystallization Analysis Fractionation Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy Differential Scanning Calorimetry THERMODYNAMIC CONSIDERATIONS RECENT DEVELOPMENTS Combined Metallocene Catalysts Polyolefin/ Clay Nanocomposites