(617bs) Synthesizing Bromobutyl Rubber By a Microreactor System

Abstract

Bromobutyl
rubber (BIIR), an important synthetic rubber, not only maintains many desirable
characteristics of traditional butyl rubber (IIR), but also has faster
vulcanization rate. However, there exists two critical problems in the process
of brominating IIR in n-hexane, that are strong
corrosion caused by Br₂ and HBr and high reactant viscosity. A PTFE-lined microreactor platform was developed to solve
the corrosion problem and obtain high quality BIIR based on excellent mixing
ability. The results showed that low reaction temperature and quickly eliminating
HBr from the reacting solution were crucial to obtain high selectivity of
demanded molecule structure and prevent polymer from decomposition. To remove
HBr from the reaction system in time, a water assistant technology was
successfully implemented in the microreactor system, which produced high
quality BIIR with almost 100% selectivity and less reduced molecule weight.