Modeling and Simulation of Ethylene Polymerization in Industrial Slurry Reactor Series

Abstract A five-site comprehensive mathematical model was developed to simulate the steady-state behavior of industrial slurry polymerization of ethylene in multistage continuous stirred tank reactors. More specifically, the effects of various operating conditions ( i.e ., inflow rates of catalyst, hydrogen and comonomer) on the molecular structure and properties of polyethylene ( i.e ., M w , M n , polydispersity index ( I PD ), melt index, density, etc .) are fully assessed. It is shown that the proposed comprehensive model is capable of simulating the steady-state operation of an industrial slurry stirred tank reactor series. It is demonstrated that changing the catalyst flow rate, changes simultaneously the mean residence-time in both reactors, which plays a significant role on the establishment of polyethylene architecture properties such as molecular mass and I PD . The melt index and density of polyethylene are mainly controlled by hydrogen and comonomer concentration, respectively.

[1]  Mohd Azlan Hussain,et al.  Mathematical Model and Advanced Control for Gas-phase Olefin Polymerization in Fluidized-bed Catalytic Reactors , 2008 .

[2]  Costas Kiparissides,et al.  Modeling and simulation of an industrial slurry-phase catalytic olefin polymerization reactor series , 2010 .

[3]  Hongxu Yang,et al.  Novel High Performance Ziegler-Natta Catalyst for Ethylene Slurry Polymerization , 2009 .

[4]  Mario de Jesus Mendes,et al.  Analysis of an industrial continuous slurry reactor for ethylene–butene copolymerization , 2005 .

[5]  W. Ray,et al.  Reactor residence-time distribution effects on the multistage polymerization of olefins—II. Polymer properties: bimodal polypropylene and linear low-density polyethylene , 1997 .

[6]  Reactor residence-time distribution effects on the multistage polymerization of olefins—III. Multi-layered products: impact polypropylene , 1997 .

[7]  Márcio Nele,et al.  Modeling Ethylene/1-Butene Copolymerizations in Industrial Slurry Reactors , 2005 .

[8]  R. Maciel Filho,et al.  Modeling and Simulation of Ethylene and 1-Butene Copolymerization in Solution with a Ziegler-Natta Catalyst , 2010 .

[9]  W. H. Ray,et al.  Reactor residence time distribution effects on the multistage polymerization of olefins—I. Basic principles and illustrative examples, polypropylene , 1996 .

[10]  J. Macgregor,et al.  A kinetic model for industrial gas-phase ethylene copolymerization , 1990 .

[11]  Sun-Won Park,et al.  Prediction of Pellet Properties for an Industrial Bimodal High-Density Polyethylene Process with Ziegler−Natta Catalysts , 2005 .

[12]  W. Cen,et al.  Ethylene Polymerization Using Improved Polyethylene Catalyst , 2011 .

[13]  Y. A. Liu,et al.  Steady-State and Dynamic Modeling of Commercial Slurry High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) Processes , 2002 .