Kinetics of PO Addition to Glycerol

In the propoxylation of glycerol, the addition rate of PO to the hydroxyl groups of the starter is different when compared with the addition rate of PO to the formed secondary hydroxyl groups. It is observed that glycerol has two primary hydroxyl groups and one secondary hydroxyl group. In the studies of PO copolymerisation with EO, the ratio r between the reaction constant of PO with secondary hydroxyl (K22) and the reaction constant with primary hydroxyl (K21) is [56, 71]  

Santacesaria and co-workers [62-67, 92] studied propoxylation and ethyoxylation of various fatty alcohols, and these studies are very important for the mathematical simulation of the process. The study links the chemical process to the mass transfer process. The variation of the reaction mass density as a function of moles of alkylene oxide added to the starter, is a very important parameter to correct the variation of the reaction volume during the alkoxylation processes. 

The solubility of alkylene oxides in the reaction mass is another important parameter, because the reaction takes place in the liquid phase and the gaseous monomer is transferred from the gas phase to the liquid phase. Because all the propoxylation and ethoxylation reactions are strongly diffusion dependent, the surface of the gas-liquid interface is a very important parameter for the mass transfer from the gas to liquid, and the real consumption of alkylene oxides depends strongly on this parameter. Between the alkoxylation of fatty alcohols and the alkoxylation of glycerol, there are many similarities if we use the Santacesaria kinetic model. Thus if RXH are considered to be the hydroxyl groups of the starter, the reaction rate of alkylene oxides addition is  

Reaction with hydroxyl groups of the starter (initiation reaction)  

It is well known that during anionic polymerisation of alkylene oxides, initiated by hydroxyl groups, there is a permanent equilibrium of alcohol - alcoholate. The distribution of alkylene oxide sequences/hydroxyl groups depends very much on the value of the equilibrium constant Ke which, in its turn, depends on the acidity of hydroxyl groups  

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