Property evaluation and control in a semibatch MMA/MA solution copolymerization reactor

This article deals with the property control of polymer product in a semibatch MMA/MA copolymerization reactor by applying the extended Kalman filter (EKF) based nonlinear model predictive control (MPC). In addition to the feeding of the more reactive monomer, the solvent is continuously supplied so as to maintain the viscosity of the reaction mixture within a reasonable range. This measure then provides favorable conditions not only for the on-line estimation with the EKF but also for the performance of the EKF based nonlinear MPC. Indeed, the improved performance of the state estimator is confirmed by experiment under isothermal and nonisothermal conditions over a prolonged reaction time. On the basis of the estimated state, the EKF based nonlinear MPC is implemented to the semibatch reactor to produce copolymers with desired properties. The experimental results clearly demonstrate the superiority of the present control strategy compared to the result of our previous work obtained without having additional feed of solvent.