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Updated: Dec 26, 2025

Ethylene Polymerizations Using Parallel Pressure Reactors and a Kinetic Analysis of Chain Transfer Polymerization
Published on: November 27, 2015
Kinetic model of two-monomer polymerization
Anna C Nelson1, James P Keener2, Aaron L Fogelson2
1Department of Mathematics, University of Utah, 155 South 1400 East, Room 233, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112-0090, USA.
Abstract:
We propose a kinetic gelation model of polymer growth with two monomeric types that have distinct functionalities (reaction sites), and can polymerize using different reaction types. The heterotypic aggregation of two monomer types is modeled using a moment generating function approach by tracking the temporal evolution of a closed system of moment equations up until gelation. We investigate several scenarios of polymerization with two distinct monomers that differ in the types of reactions that can occur. We determine numerical and analytical conditions for finite time blow-up (the emergence of an oligomer of infinite size) that depend on initial conditions, reaction rates, and number of reaction sites per monomer.
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