Optimization of living radical polymerization through distributed control of energy

An optimal control methodology is applied to the goal of lowering the reaction time while maintaining low polydispersity in living free-radical polymerization. An illustration is provided using a heat flux to optimize the temperature profile for living free-radical polymerization of styrene in a plug flow reactor. The reactor designs show that distributed heat flux along the length of the reactor can reduce the reaction time significantly for a given conversion. The reduction in residence time comes at the expense of a modest increase in polydispersity. A reference simulation with no optimization shows a conversion of 85% after 70 h and a final polydispersity of 1.31. Optimization of a distributed heat flux results in a conversion of 83% after only 33 h while the polydispersity rises slightly to 1.39. The theoretical designs, although not proven to be globally optimal, are of high quality.