Computer-aided design of initiator utilization strategies for vinyl chloride suspension polymerization with constant reaction rate

From the viewpoint of polymer reaction engineering (PRE), polymerization with constant reaction rate is beneficial for reducing manual operations and promoting production efficiency. Using vinyl chloride (VC) suspension polymerization as a model system, manipulating the radical concentration by radical concentration-dependent optimization (RCO)-based initiators mixing (IM) strategy or continuous initiator dosing (CiD) strategy enables the polymerization with constant reaction rate. Case studies have been done to illustrate how the RCO-based IM strategy works for binary initiator combination screening and how to conduct VC suspension polymerizations with different reaction rates using RCO-based IM strategy. Importantly, decomposition kinetic parameters estimated for virtual initiators can be used for guiding the design of the capable initiators. Moreover, in the single initiator systems, the applicability of the RCO-based CiD strategy has been demonstrated by conducting VC suspension polymerization with different reaction rates and different temperatures. Optimal dosing rate profiles of the initiator can be provided for the cases demonstrated. It is expected that both RCO-based IM and CiD strategies can be extended to other free radical polymerization systems.