Industrial Polymerization Monitoring

Summary: Monitoring and control of polymerization reactions is essential for high process safety, high product quality and competitive production costs. Ideally the entire process chain is regarded, starting with raw material analysis and the polymerization reaction up to the measurement of polymer- and application- properties. Process data like temperatures and pressures can be used to monitor reaction trajectories in a cost effective way, e.g. using calorimetric evaluations. Additional sensors can provide chemical or morphological information but must be robust and inexpensive for commercial applications (e.g. NIR- or Raman spectroscopy). Data from these different sources can be used for multivariate data analysis, delivering additional insights that might not be obtained by direct measurement.