Energy vinyl acetate monomer process

The final example to illustrate our plantwide control design procedure comes from Luyben and Tyreus (1998), who present design details of an industrial process for the vapor-phase manufacture of vinyl acetate monomer. This process is uniquely suited for researchers pursuing process simulation, design, and control studies. It has common real chemical components in a realistically large process flowsheet with standard chemical unit operations, gas and liquid recycle streams, and energy integration. 

Mini-emulsion processes have been developed where the monomer is emulsified under high energy with either a long-chain alcohol or a polymer producing very small droplets. The long-chain alcohol retards the diffusion of the monomer out of the droplets (67). Polymerization takes place primarily in the droplets, allowing the development of fine, narrow particle-size distributions (68). The proceedings of a symposium on the emulsion polymerization of vinyl acetate is available (69). 

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