Online Model-Based Process Safety Concepts in Polymerization

Summary: To safeguard runaway reactions in industrial scale, qualified methods have to be used. While mechanical safety devices are usually installed, their design may be problematic as the runaway kinetics must be known. This may not be the case for many processes due to the required flexibility and possible unanticipated deviations from recipes. It is shown that runaway kinetics can be very fast and can lead to high conversions. Therefore, a method is proposed that does not depend on kinetics but limits the amounts of unreacted monomer in the reactor by monitoring the conversion and by quantitatively determining the hazardous potential. If a potential violation is observed, feeds to the reactor are interrupted.