Axial velocity gradient effects in tubular loop polymerization reactors

ABSTRACT Generally, a comprehensively distributed reactor model must incorporate a momentum balance equation to calculate velocity gradient. However, the momentum balance equation also leads to the increasing complexity of the reactor model, which was neglected in previous works. In this work, issue...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Asia-Pacific journal of chemical engineering 2013-05, Vol.8 (3), p.405-413
Main Authors: Zheng, Tao, Jiang, Chong-wen, Luo, Zheng-hong
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Chemical engineering
chemical reactors
Concentration gradient
heat transfer
loop reactor
mass transfer
Mathematical analysis
mathematical modeling
Mathematical models
Polymerization
Polypropylenes
Propylene
Reactors
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Summary:ABSTRACT Generally, a comprehensively distributed reactor model must incorporate a momentum balance equation to calculate velocity gradient. However, the momentum balance equation also leads to the increasing complexity of the reactor model, which was neglected in previous works. In this work, issues whether the velocity gradient can be neglected or not are addressed. On the basis of mass, energy and momentum balances, polymerization kinetics as well as the thermodynamic state equations, two dynamically distributed reactor models either considering or neglecting axial velocity gradient are presented to examine its effect in tubular loop polymerization reactors. The results indicate that the axial velocity gradient has an important effect on the reactor flow‐field parameters (i.e. propylene concentration, catalyst concentration, hydrogen concentration, polypropylene concentration, temperature and pressure) at low recycle ratios (Rec 
ISSN:1932-2135
1932-2143
DOI:10.1002/apj.1673