Engineering Research Equipment: Emulsion Polymerization>>>>>Process Control Facility>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

乳液聚合在工业中被广泛用于生产乳胶漆、粘合剂、涂料、纸张和纺织产品的粘结剂、合成橡胶等应用的乳胶。生产的乳胶阶段进行凝聚，得到本体聚合物或最终产品，经过适当处理后，即可获得原始乳胶形式(例如，丙烯酸涂料)。此外，环境问题和法规引发了一种主要趋势，即远离溶剂含量较高的涂料产品，导致广泛使用水性乳胶。乳液聚合反应器的控制仍然是一项艰巨的任务。控制乳液聚合过程的问题是由于它们的多相性质，这一点还没有被很好地理解。新出现的传感器技术与建模和过程控制方面的进步相结合，带来了更好地控制此类工业系统的潜力，并为美国工业在乳液聚合方面提供了竞争优势。这笔赠款仅用于购买乳液聚合的原型工艺控制设备。包括一个完全仪表化的聚合物反应器以及自动传感器和控制设备。将进行各种工艺设计和不同控制策略的实验测试，包括测试新的在线传感器。

Emulsion polymerization is widely used in industry to produce latices for applications such as latex paints, adhesives, coatings, binders in paper and textile products, synthetic rubber, etc. The latex stage of the production is coagulated to give bulk polymer, or a final product, which after suitable treatment is made available in its original latex form ( for example, acrylic paints). In addition, environmental concerns and regulations have initiated a major trend driving away from paint products with high solvent content leading to widespread use of water based latices. The control of emulsion polymerization reactors is still a difficult task. The problems of controlling emulsion polymerization processes are due to their multiphase nature which is not well understood. Newly emerging sensor technology combined with advances in modeling and process control, introduce the potential to better control such industrial systems and provide US industries with a competitive edge in emulsion polymerization. This grant is for equipment only a prototype process control facility for emulsion polymerization. Included are a fully instrumented polymer reactor and automatic sensor and control equipment. Various process design and experimental testing of different control strategies will be carried out including the testing of new on-line sensors.