Polyolefin reaction engineering - An overview of recent developments

The various developments in the polyolefin (PO) reaction engineering are presented. Advances have been made in the fundamentals of fluidized bed reactors (FBR) modeling. Population balances have been combined with improved particle models and particle agglomeration models to begin to look at the evolution of the particle size distribution under reaction conditions. Advanced modeling techniques with tools such as computational fluid dynamics (CFD) are being used to look at reactor behavior. The latest version of CFD codes using multi-phase particulate flow models will be a very useful tool in exploring mixing, particle-particle, and particle-reactor interactions.