Evaluation of factors and kinetics study of polyacrylamide redox polymerization using statistical design modeling

Abstract

Abstract Polyacrylamide was produced through redox polymerization in a single batch reactor. Ammonium persulfate and sodium bisulfite were applied as the redox initiators. Statistical design consisting a 24 full factorial design was used to determine the dependence of the factors such as temperature, concentrations of acrylamide, ammonium persulfate and sodium bisulfite, as well as their interactions in affecting the initial rate of polyacrylamide redox polymerization. All independent factors were shown to have a significant effect on the rate of polyacrylamide redox polymerization. The order of significance was: temperature>ammonium persulfate>acrylamide>sodium bisulfite. The interactive effects of the factors were also investigated. The 24 ull factorial design was augmented to central composite design (CCD), to optimize the rate of polyacrylamide redox polymerization. The results showed that a high rate of polyacrylamide redox polymerization occurred at a high level of the factors. A statistical design kinetics model was constructed through second-order regression to predict the rate of polyacrylamide redox polymerization and the R2 value was 0.9888, which fitted the experimental rate of polyacrylamide redox polymerization better compared to the classical kinetics model.