Free-Radical Polymerization in Reactive Supercritical Fluids

6 Free-Radical Polymerization in Reactive Supercritical Fluids 

Sabine Beuermann. Michael Buback, and Markus Busch 

This chapter focuses on recent advances in high-pressure ethene homo- and copolymerization that have emerged from applying pulsed-laser-assisted techniques to the measurement of rate parameters, from using on-line spectroscopic monitoring of polymerization Under extreme supercritical conditions, and from introducing simulation tools into data analysis. 

Section 4.6.2 illustrates the experimental procedures that have recently been applied toward the study of high-pressure free-radical polymerization processes. Section 4.6.3 presents results of propagation, termination, chain-transfer (to monomer and to polymer), and P-scission rate coefficients for ethene homopolymerization. Recent results from experiments and modeling investigations into high-pressure copolymerizations (with ethene being one of the monomers) are reported in Section 4.6.4, together with information on homopolymerization rate coefficients of the comonomer species. 

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Beuermann S, Buback M, Busch M. Free-radical polymerization in reactive supercritical fluids. In Jessop PG, Leitner W, eds. Chemical Synthesis Using Supercritical Fluids. Weinheim, Germany Wiley-VCH, 1999 326-350. 

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