Industrial Process Monitoring of Polymerization and Spray Drying Processes

Abstract

Radical polymerizations in emulsion, suspension and solution are very important industrial production processes. To be able to control these processes to achieve good product quality makes the development of methods to observe these reactions in situ a very important topic not just in academia, but also in industry. In this paper, the advantages and disadvantages of different methods to follow emulsion and suspension polymerization reactions as well as spray drying processes are discussed from an industrial point of view. Calorimetry, near infrared spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy are the methods with the highest potential for on‐line applications. Droplet formation in spray drying can be observed by laser light scattering methods. Spectroscopic methods have used data analysis methods (principal component analysis, partial least squares) for a number of years. These methods can also be used as “soft sensors” with standard process data. Examples how these soft sensors can be applied to emulsion polymerization processes are shown.