Scale up of reactor recipes for bimodal high-density polyethylene production in cascade process

Abstract

New bimodal high-density polyethylene (HDPE) resins are commonly developed in pilot plants. Among multiple goals, the tests aim to determine the operational conditions of the reactors. A scale-up procedure is then necessary to produce the resin in the industrial plant. To succeed, the large-scale plant should replicate the polymer microstructure developed in the pilot plant. This paper reports a methodology for the scale-up of reactor recipes for the production of HDPE resins in cascade slurry polymerization reactors. Scale-up factors were derived from the similarity condition of the same polymer microstructure and performance requirements for the industrial plant. This strategy allows the setup of a concomitant scale-up/optimization problem which is analytically solved in steady-state and isothermal conditions. It is expected that the derived scaling laws speed up product development by reducing the time spent in the pilot plant tests and the commissioning of new HDPE resins in industrial processes.