A STUDY ON RESOL-TYPE PHENOL-FORMALDEHYDE RUNAWAY REACTIONS

Resol polymerizations are very exothermic, and certain circumstances can lead them to uncontrollable self-heating. To prevent disasters, chemical reactors are usually equipped with emergency relief lines whose design is based on small-scale tests with the field formulation. A large number of such experiments were performed in the Reactive System Screening Tool (RSST) for resol polymerizations in this work, exploring the different facets of runaway reactions. The most significant finding in this study is the recognition that the small-scale test may yield erroneous results if the conditions are not carefully chosen.