REACTIVE MATERIALS AND REACTION HANDLING
In this page you will know how to protect a vessel from overpressure if an unstable material in the vessel undergoes a runaway reaction,or, simply due to the uncontrollable temperature in a reactor due to failure of the coolant, how to develop the kinetic parameters from experimental data using ARC, VSP2, VariPhi etc. It also explains “Phi-factor”, “Onset decomposition temperature”, “Temperature of no return”, Self-Accelerating Decomposition Temperature (SADT), Induction time, elementary and complex reaction, heat transfer through jacketed vessel and multiple steady states, use of Semenov model, BIOT number (influence of mixing in heat transfer), and many more. There is a special type of reaction known as polymerization which is unique. There are bulk, suspension, solution, and emulsion polymerization.Polymerization follows a chain reaction comprising molecules or atoms having an unpaired electron. Typically, polymerization follows initiation, propagation, and termination to control a predetermined molecular weight. The gel effect or the Trommsdorff effect – a phenomenon of auto-catalytic polymerization which exhibits an increase in polymerization rate due to chain entanglement in the increasing viscous solution which hinders the termination step more than it hinders the initiation step. This can lead to runaway reaction with possible explosion. There is a similar polymerization caused by uncontrollable free radical polymerization of monomers like butadiene, often caused by heat, oxygen, pressure, or the presence of a catalysts like peroxides or rust. The phenomenon starts with a “seed” or nucleus of a solid particle that grows rapidly. They are known as “popcorn” polymers. They can cause pressure and temperature rise leading to explosion. The most common mathematical model to simulate polymerization is Hui-Hamielec model, but appropriate attention is needed for the gel effect and the “popcorn” effect to avoid creating a Weapon of Math Destruction (WMD).
To know details about this page, please contact Dilip K Das at 1(816)400-3238 or email to [email protected].
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