Polymer processing
Parthiv M. Trivedi; Sandip Patil; Virendra K. Gupta
Abstract
Ultra-high molecular weight polyolefin (UHMWPO) has enormous potential applications due to their excellent mechanical properties such as tensile strength, flexural modulus, toughness and outstanding chemical resistance. But the processing of polyolefin, in particular, UHMWPO fibers cannot be processed ...
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Ultra-high molecular weight polyolefin (UHMWPO) has enormous potential applications due to their excellent mechanical properties such as tensile strength, flexural modulus, toughness and outstanding chemical resistance. But the processing of polyolefin, in particular, UHMWPO fibers cannot be processed by conventional methods due to its very high melt viscosity. In this work, we synthesized isotactic ultra-high molecular weight polypropylene (UHMWPP) resin and studied the processability of UHMWPP fibers using gel spinning and investigated physicomechanical properties. UHMWPP gel was made at various concentrations in decalin solvent at 150°C to produce consistent spinning dope solutions. The 7 wt.% concentration of UHMWPP was deemed best for fiber creation, compared to 3 wt.% and 5 wt.%. A rheological time sweep was done to ensure the gel's stability at 170°C before the spinning process. The UHMWPP's gelation and fiber formation were studied by tweaking the gel concentration and adjusting the processing temperature. The resulting UHMWPP monofilament had a measure of 220-250 denier. The hot stretched fibers were analyzed with the scanning electron microscope (SEM) to understand the surface morphology of the fibers. The crystal morphology of UHMWPP fibers was measured with wide-angle x-ray scattering (WAXS) and DSC. The X-ray measurement of hot stretched UHMWPP fibers showed crystalline peaks compared to those without stretched fibers.
Polyolefins Industry
Naeimeh Bahri-Laleh; Mehdi Nekoomanesh-Haghighi; Samahe Sadjadi; Ali Pajouhan
Abstract
Due to easy availability of cheaper raw material and increase in new applications, the use of polyolefins in various industries is becoming a major priority. The Middle East region, on account of its vast oil and gas reserves has, in the last decade or so, been developing many new petrochemical complexes ...
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Due to easy availability of cheaper raw material and increase in new applications, the use of polyolefins in various industries is becoming a major priority. The Middle East region, on account of its vast oil and gas reserves has, in the last decade or so, been developing many new petrochemical complexes with their expansion into colossal polyolefin production capacities. The predictions are that by 2020 the Middle East region will dominate the polyolefin industry as a whole. Furthermore, with proven oil reserves of about 21.7 thousand million tons (4th world ranking) and natural gas of 34.0 trillion cubic meters (1st world ranking), Iran’s petrochemical industry is supported by diverse and abundant feedstock reserves. In line with other polyolefin producers’ developments in the Middle East, Iran's National Petrochemical Company (NPC) has undergone massive structural and technological transformations in the last two decades in order to set up ambitious plans for further capacity increase and native technology developments. This article mainly focuses on Iran today’s position and its future plans in the polyolefins industry.
Reaction engineering
Marzieh Nouri; Mahmoud Parvazinia; Hassan Arabi; Mohsen Najafi
Abstract
A two-dimensional (2D) single particle model for the copolymerization of propylene-ethylene with heterogeneous Ziegler-Natta catalyst is developed. The model accounts for the effects of the initial shape of the catalyst and carck/ pore patterns on the copolymer composition, polymerization rate and the ...
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A two-dimensional (2D) single particle model for the copolymerization of propylene-ethylene with heterogeneous Ziegler-Natta catalyst is developed. The model accounts for the effects of the initial shape of the catalyst and carck/ pore patterns on the copolymer composition, polymerization rate and the average molecular weight properties. The spherical and oblate ellipsoidal shapes of catalyst particle and four different pattern distributions of cracks and pores in a growing particle are studied in this simulation. It is assumed that the diffusion coefficient of monomers in the cracks/pores is 10 times higher than the compact zone of the particle.In other word, the cracks are distinguished from parts with higher monomer diffusion coefficient.The dynamic 2D monomer diffusion-reaction equation is solved together with a two-site catalyst kinetic mechanism using the finite element method. Simulation results indicate that the initial shape of catalyst changes the average copolymer composition only in the early stage of polymerization, but the crack/pore patterns in the growing particle have a strong impact on the copolymer composition in the polymer particles due to the change ofmass transfer limitations.
Reaction engineering
Mohsen Najafi; Mahmoud Parvazinia; Mir Hamid Reza Ghoreishy
Abstract
A two-dimensional single particle finite element model was used to examine the effects of particle fragmental pattern on the average molecular weights, polymerization rate and particle overheating in heterogeneous Ziegler-Natta olefin polymerization. A two-site catalyst kinetic mechanism was employed ...
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A two-dimensional single particle finite element model was used to examine the effects of particle fragmental pattern on the average molecular weights, polymerization rate and particle overheating in heterogeneous Ziegler-Natta olefin polymerization. A two-site catalyst kinetic mechanism was employed together with a dynamic two-dimensional molecular species in diffusion-reaction equation. The initial catalyst active sites distribution was assumed to be uniform, while the monomer diffusion coefficient was considered to be different inside the fragments and cracks. In other words, the cracks were distinguished from fragments with higher monomer diffusion coefficient. To model the particle temperature a lumped heat transfer model was used. The fragmentation pattern was considered to remain unchanged during the polymerization. A Galerkin finite element method was used to solve the resulting two-dimensional (2-D) moving boundary value, diffusion-reaction problem. A two-dimensional polymeric flow model (PFM) was implemented on the finite element meshes. The simulation results showed that the fragmentation pattern had effects on the molecular properties, reaction rate and the particle temperature at early stages of polymerization.
Catalysis
Najmeh Hadian; Shokoofeh Hakim; Mehdi Nekoomanesh-Haghighi; Naeimeh bahri-Laleh
Abstract
Primary MgCl2.3.3EtOH adduct (PCT1) was prepared by melt quenching method and then submitted into a programmed thermal dealcoholation project using a fluidized bed reactor. During thermal dealcoholation program, different MgCl2.nEtOH support samples with n= 3.0, 2.7, 2.4, and 2.1 were selected and named ...
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Primary MgCl2.3.3EtOH adduct (PCT1) was prepared by melt quenching method and then submitted into a programmed thermal dealcoholation project using a fluidized bed reactor. During thermal dealcoholation program, different MgCl2.nEtOH support samples with n= 3.0, 2.7, 2.4, and 2.1 were selected and named as PCT2 to PCT5, respectively. Structural analysis of the support samples showed a significant increase in the surface area, from 7.4 m2/g to 12.8 m2/g, together with the decrease in peaks height at 2θ≈ 8.9 and 9.7˚ by moving from PCT1 to PCT5. After characterization of support samples, final catalysts were prepared by reacting these samples with TiCl4 and examined in slurry phase propylene polymerization. Prepared catalysts showed similar stereospecifities but different activities in the polymerization experiments, so that, with proceeding dealcoholation from PCT1 to PCT2 catalyst activity was reached a maximum amount of 2.9 kgPP/g Cat.h, and then by further dealcoholation, from PCT2 to PCT5, catalyst activity decreased gradually. In the last section, effect of time interval between thermal dealcoholation and catalyst preparation, which is called storage time, on the crystal and morphological characteristics of the two of the best adduct samples, namely MgCl2.2.4EtOH and MgCl2.3.0EtOH, was studied, as well. Storage time greatly affected the characteristics of the adducts together with resulted catalysts, and the best catalyst activity was achieved for the ones prepared immediately after adduct preparation.
