Modeling and Simulation of an Isothermal Suspension Polymerization Reactor for PMMA Production Using Python ()
ABSTRACT
This paper presents the modeling and simulation of a suspension polymerization
for methyl methacrylate in an isothermal reactor to produce poly methyl
methacrylate using Python 3.5. The numeral solution to the stiff ordinary differential
equations was performed by building a custom module which was
used with the inbuilt NumPy and matplotlib modules that come with the
Anaconda python distro. Python was used in order to obtain a realistic solution
that considers the gel, glass and cage effects that affect the non-linear polymerization
kinetics established in literature. The results showed that a
maximum monomer conversion of about 92.8% at a minimum batch time of
about 2.2 hours could be achieved at the specified conditions to obtain a polydisperse
polymer with an index of 27. It is further concluded that Python can
be employed to perform similar studies with equal success as any other programming
language.
Share and Cite:
Okullo, A. , Tibasiima, N. and Barasa, J. (2017) Modeling and Simulation of an Isothermal Suspension Polymerization Reactor for PMMA Production Using Python.
Advances in Chemical Engineering and Science,
7, 408-419. doi:
10.4236/aces.2017.74029.