Modeling of Methyl Methacrylate Polymerization Using MATLAB

• Main Authors: Law, Woon Phui, Wan Hanisah, Wan Ibrahim, Jolius, Gimbun
• Format: Article
• Language: English; English
• Published: DeGruyter 2016
• Subjects: TP Chemical technology
• Online Access: http://umpir.ump.edu.my/id/eprint/14372/1/Law_cppm-2015-0070%20pub.pdf; http://umpir.ump.edu.my/id/eprint/14372/7/fkksa-2016-law-Modeling%20of%20Methyl%20Methacrylate%20Polymerization%20.pdf; http://umpir.ump.edu.my/id/eprint/14372/; http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/cppm-2015-0070
• Institution: Universiti Malaysia Pahang

This paper presents a modeling of methyl methacrylate (MMA) polymerization with toluene in the presence of azo-bi’s-isobutyronitrile (AIBN) using MATLAB. This work aims to optimize the initial concentration of initiator and the reactor temperature to achieve a maximum monomer conversion in minimum batch time. The optimization of solution polymerization of MMA based on the three-stage polymerization model (TSPM) was performed using ode23t solver. The non-linear polymerization kinetics considered the gel, glass and cage effect to obtain a realistic prediction. The predicted reactor and jacket temperature showed a reasonable agreement with the experimental data, where the error is about 2.7 % and 2.3 %, respectively. The results showed that a maximum monomer conversion of 94 % was achieved at 0.126 kgmol m–3 of the initial concentration of AIBN and 346 K of the initial reactor temperature in 8,951 s (2.5 h).