Experimental techniques continued documentation

Table 10.32 is a shortlist of the characteristics of the ideal polymer/additive analysis technique. It is hoped that the ideal method of the future will be a reliable, cost-effective, qualitative and quantitative, in-polymer additive analysis technique. It may be useful to briefly compare the two general approaches to additive analysis, namely conventional and in-polymer methods. The classical methods range from inexpensive to expensive in terms of equipment they are well established and subject to continuous evolution and their strengths and deficiencies are well documented. We stressed the hyphenated methods for qualitative analysis and the dissolution methods for quantitative analysis. Lattimer and Harris [130] concluded in 1989 that there was no clear advantage for direct analysis (of rubbers) over extract analysis. Despite many instrumental advances in the last decade, this conclusion still largely holds true today. Direct analysis is experimentally somewhat faster and easier, but tends to require greater interpretative difficulties. Direct analysis avoids such common extraction difficulties as ... 

Polystyrene can be easily prepared by emulsion or suspension techniques. Harkins (1 ), Smith and Ewart(2) and Garden ( ) have described the mechanisms of emulsTon polymerization in batch reactors, and the results have been extended to a series of continuous stirred tank reactors (CSTR)( o Much information on continuous emulsion reactors Ts documented in the patent literature, with such innovations as use of a seed latex (5), use of pulsatile flow to reduce plugging of the tube ( ), and turbulent flow to reduce plugging (7 ). Feldon (8) discusses the tubular polymerization of SBR rubber wTth laminar flow (at Reynolds numbers of 660). There have been recent studies on continuous stirred tank reactors utilizing Smith-Ewart kinetics in a single CSTR ( ) as well as predictions of particle size distribution (10). Continuous tubular reactors have been examined for non-polymeric reactions (1 1 ) and polymeric reactions (12.1 31 The objective of this study was to develop a model for the continuous emulsion polymerization of styrene in a tubular reactor, and to verify the model with experimental data. 

Continued developments in experimental and theoretical techniques have ensured that microwave spectroscopy remains a very active field. Since its inception shortly after World War II, numerous experimental improvements and technological advances have been made. These and various theoretical improvements are discussed and well documented in other articles and books (see Bibliography). Here we highlight a few of the more recent developments. 

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