Molecular weight distributions for reversible nylon-6 polymerizations in batch reactors

The reversible polymerization of nylon-6 including ring opening, polycondensation, polyaddition and cyclization reactions as well as the reaction with monofunctional acids, has been modelled. Molecular weight distributions and their moments have been obtained for various initial conditions and at two temperatures, 235° and 265°C, for a batch reactor. The cyclic oligomer concentrations have also been computed. It is found that even though the cyclization step has little influence on the monomer conversion, it does affect the molecular weight distribution and its moments