Barocalorimetric estimation of emulsion copolymerization reactors

This work is a theoretical-experimental study on the barocalorimetric estimation of semibatch copolymerization pressurized reactors. The individual conversions, residual monomer, heat transfer and heat generation rates are estimated using mass and energy balances, two simple models for the pressure and monomers partition and calorimetric and pressure measurements. The solvability of the estimation problem is studied with a nonlinear constructive geometric approach giving the conditions for the suitability of the technique in terms of physical significance: vapour pressure of monomers, reaction heats and thermal capacitances. The implementation and tuning of the estimator is straightforward and tractable by tools and notions of linear systems. The batch emulsion copolymerization of styrene-butadiene is presented as a case study with the results of simulation experimentally corroborated.