1. Department of Chemical Engineering, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, K7L 3N6 Canada;2. Department of Polymer Reaction Engineering, BASF, Ludwigshafen, Rheinland‐Pfalz, 67063 Germany
Abstract:
Styrene polymerization literature is reviewed and a model with dicumyl peroxide and benzoyl peroxide initiators is developed. Nine parameters are selected for estimation using statistical methods that account for the influence of parameters on model predictions, correlated effects of parameters and uncertainties of initial literature values. Updated parameters result in improved fits to conversion and molecular weight data from three research groups, reducing the least‐squares objective function by 73%. Use of industrial data from 19 batch reactor runs increases the number of estimable parameters to 16. Good predictions are obtained for validation runs with temperature ramps using both initiators.
