Physical vinyl acetate monomer process

The industrial process for the vapor-phase manufacture of vinyl acetate monomer is quite common (Daniels, 1989) and utilizes widely available raw materials. Vinyl acetate is used chiefly as a monomer to make polyvinyl acetate and other copolymers. Hoechst-Celanese, Union Carbide, and Quantum Chemical are reported U.S. manufacturers. DuPont also currently operates a vinyl acetate process at its plant in LaPorte, Texas. To protect any proprietary DuPont information, all of the physical property and kinetic data, process flowsheet information, and modeling formulation in the published paper come from sources... 

High-Temperature Application. Vinyl Acetate Distribution in Copoly (ethylene-vinyl acetate). In the characterization of polymers, molecular distribution and composition are two critical parameters. Every physical property and processing change of the material can be related to these two parameters. With copolymers, IR spectroscopy can be used for determination of the distribution of one or both monomers within the molecular weight distribution. 

Emulsion polymerization requires free-radical polymerizable monomers which form the structure of the polymer. The major monomers used in emulsion polymerization include butadiene, styrene, acrylonitrile, acrylate ester and methacrylate ester monomers, vinyl acetate, acrylic acid and methacrylic acid, and vinyl chloride. All these monomers have a different stmcture and, chemical and physical properties which can be considerable influence on the course of emulsion polymerization. The first classification of emulsion polymerization process is done with respect to the nature of monomers studied up to that time. This classification is based on data for the different solubilities of monomers in water and for the different initial rates of polymerization caused by the monomer solubilities in water. According to this classification, monomers are divided into three groups. The first group includes monomers which have good solubility in water such as acrylonitrile (solubility in water 8%). The second group includes monomers having 1-3 % solubility in water (methyl methacrylate and other acrylates). The third group includes monomers practically insoluble in water (butadiene, isoprene, styrene, vinyl chloride, etc.) [12]. 

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