ON-LINE MONITORING OF EMULSION COPOLYMERISATIONS USING HARDWARE SENSORS AND CALORIMETRY
Résumé
A new estimator for the on-line monitoring of emulsion terpolymerization is presented. A high gain observer is used to estimate the individual monomer conversions, the instantaneous and cumulative terpolymer composition, and the total number of moles of radicals in the polymer particles on-line. The estimator requires the input of the overall conversion. This input is obtained by calorimetry in the current case, but can be provided by any other type of in-line probe. The estimator has been experimentally validated (on- and offline) for hydrophobic and slightly water soluble monomers, in 3 liter and 250 liter pilot scale reactors. The results obtained demonstrate the usefulness of the high gain approach.