The group is working in the field of high-pressure polymerization technique with a strong interaction between experiment and simulation. Due to the limited time, the project should focus on one of both.

Potential experimental focus:

• operation of high-pressure polymerization miniplant
• kinetic studies on polymerization systems with ethylene and various additives (comonomers, chain-transfer agents)
• safety assessment of process phenomena on miniplant scale
• measurement of thermophysical parameters such as heat capacity or density at process conditions

Potential modeling focus:

• deterministic process simulation for the description of the polymerization kinetics as well as mass-, heat- and impulse-balance with the software Predici
• stochastic modeling of the microstructure of macromolecules (self-coded)
• computational fluid dynamics (CFD) of the mixing characteristics in polymerization reactors

Potential emulsion polymerization focus

• Operation of (high-pressure) emulsion polymerization miniplant in semi-batch mode
• Design and application of 3D-printed reactionware for reactor optimization
• Kinetic modeling of multi-phase emulsion polymerization system