Modeling and optimization of propylene polymerization with branching

A kinetic model has been proposed to fit the experimental data available from the open literature for branched propylene polymerization system. The present system considered is a binary catalyst system, in which the first catalyst produces the atactic polypropylene macromonomer whereas the second one grafts the atactic polypropylene macromonomers to isotactic polypropylene backbone leading to branching. The proposed kinetic model, first of its kind that has been validated with experimental data, is extended to find the optimal process conditions for the desired combination of conflicting objectives. For this purpose, multi-objective optimization technique non- dominating sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA II) has been utilized. A wide variety of process choices have been obtained for the optimization set up which shows improvement in process performance as compared to similar process performances reported in the open literatur