(570ag) Reversible Addition Fragmentation Chain Transfer Polymerization of PMMA Using Flow through Reactor

Batch reactor is an reaction equipment, widely used in chemical process. Batch reactor is used due to many advantages such as reaction efficiency, flexibility, and its convenience while operation. However, there are disadvantages as well as advantages. It requires too much money and energy needed for controlling the properties of polymer in production, due to its inefficient heat transfer and temperature differences in the reactor. Many R&Ds are in progress to solve these problems in many ways in the level of country and company. Micro reaction technology is one of the most notable researches. This research has studied micro reaction technology to effectively control the polymerization reaction. Microreactor has excellent heat transfer ability so it can effectively remove heat of reaction and make uniform temperature distribution because of its rapid mixing ability. Thus it is possible to control molecular distribution in polymerization. In experiments, we used methyl methacrylate(MMA) as the monomer and 2,2-azobis isobutyronitrile(AIBN) as the initiator. We researched the influences of mixing by using micromixer and static mixer for polymerization. We analyzed the performances of polymerization by changing the operation conditions, such as temperature, residence time and monomer/initiator ratio. Furthermore, we performed Chain Transfer Agent(CTA) synthesis experiment for Reversible Addition-Fragmentation Chain Transfer(RAFT) polymerization. By comparing it with the result obtained from RAFT polymerization, polymerization experiments, using micromixer and static mixer, can control the molecular weight and molecular distribution of polymer by effect of mixing.