Real-Time Monitoring of Particle Size in Emulsion Polymerization: Simultaneous Turbidity and Photon Density Wave Spectroscopy

Particle size evolution in seeded semibatch emulsion polymerization is monitored by two real-time monitoring techniques: online turbidity spectroscopy (TUS) and inline photon density wave spectroscopy (PDWS). An automatic dilution system that withdraws a sample from the reactor and upon dilution transfers to the measurement cell is used for the online TUS analysis. A PDWS probe is immersed in the reactor and collects inline the scattered light directly from the reacting latex. The particle sizes retrieved from TUS and PDWS are compared to offline dynamic light scattering (DLS) values. The particle size obtained by TUS is close to the intensity-average particle size obtained offline by DLS, while the particle size obtained by PDWS lies closer to the number-average particle size from DLS.