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Materials Today: Proceedings 4 (2017) 4 (2017) 10509–10514
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*
Corresponding author. Tel: +91-167-225-3128; Fax: +91-167-225-3127.
E-mail address: v.lundia@gmail.com
2214-7853 © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and Peer-review under responsibility of International Conference on Recent Trends in Engineering and
Material Sciences (ICEMS-2016).
ICEMS 2016
Simulation Studies on Homogeneous Catalyst System rac-
Me
2
Si (Benz[e]Indenyl)
2
ZrCI
2
/MAO for Synthesis of
Polypropylene
Vineet Lundia
a*
, Nikhil Prakash
b
a,b
Chemical Engineering Department,
Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering and Technology, Longowal (S.L.I.E.T.), Sangrur-148106, Punjab, India.
Abstract
Metallocene catalyst system refers to the combination of bis(cyclopentadienyl)metal complexes of Group 4
(IVB) or cyclopentadienyl-substituted derivatives, and a co-catalyst, typically methylalumoxane (MAO). In
propene polymerization, Metallocene catalysts have in general demonstrated high productivity, narrow
molecular weight distribution (MWD), greater efficiency in using co-monomer to reduce the density,
capability of producing polypropene with varying molecular weights and controlled stereoregularity.
In this work the performance of rac-Me
2
Si(Benz[e]Indenyl)
2
ZrCI
2
/MAO catalyst system for
polymerization of propene is studied. A mathematical model is developed for Zirconocene catalyzed propene
polymerization. The model is simulated using Differential Evolution optimization algorithm in MATLAB
7.10.0 (R2010a) and verified with the experimental data. Model predictions are in good agreement with
experimental results. Further, the effects of monomer concentration and concentration of catalyst on the rate of
polymerization and polypropene properties are analyzed.
© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and Peer-review under responsibility of International Conference on Recent Trends in Engineering
and Material Sciences (ICEMS-2016)
Keywords: metallocene, polypropylene, mathematical modelling, differential evolution