Control of Polymerization Processes

With an annual worldwide production well in excess of 100 million metric tons, synthetic polymers constitute a significant part of the modern chemical process industry. Polymer reactors - operated in continuous, batch, or semibatch mode - are therefore important processing units, but there are unique problems associated with controlling them effectively. The most significant characteristics of polymer reactors that make them one of the most challenging units to model, control, and optimize, are discussed in this chapter; we also provide a survey of the strategies that have been proposed, and those that have been successfully employed in industrial practice.