Slurry polymerization processes using Zeigler–Natta catalysts, are most widely used for the production of polyethylene due to their several advantages over other processes. Significant advancements have been made in the modeling of these processes to obtain high-quality final products. The modeling work in this field has a very wide scope due to the great diversity of the catalyst types, polymerization processes, polymerization conditions, product qualities and microstructures that exist at the commercial scale. In this article, we have reviewed and discussed the slurry polymerization processes for the production of polyethylene and the multiscale modeling and simulation framework in slurry reactors. The multiscale modeling framework mainly comprises of the kinetic model, single-particle diffusion models, multiphase hydrodynamics, phase equilibria, reactor residence time distribution and the overall mass and heat balances. Guidelines to implement the multiscale mathematical modeling and simulation in slurry-phase olefin polymerization processes are proposed. Special focus is given on the need to reduce the computational effort for the simulation of industrial reactors so that the models can be used as an effective tool-kit for optimization studies using state-of-art algorithms.

中文翻译：

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淤浆相乙烯聚合工艺：多尺度建模和模拟综述

使用Zeigler-Natta催化剂的淤浆聚合工艺因其相对于其他工艺的诸多优势而被广泛用于聚乙烯的生产。在对这些过程进行建模以获取高质量最终产品方面取得了重大进展。由于在商业规模上存在的催化剂类型，聚合过程，聚合条件，产品质量和微观结构的多样性，该领域的建模工作具有非常广泛的范围。在本文中，我们回顾并讨论了用于生产聚乙烯的淤浆聚合工艺以及淤浆反应器中的多尺度建模和仿真框架。多尺度建模框架主要包括动力学模型，单粒子扩散模型，多相流体动力学，相平衡，反应器停留时间分布以及整体质量和热量平衡。提出了在淤浆相烯烃聚合过程中实施多尺度数学建模和模拟的指南。特别关注的是需要减少用于模拟工业反应堆的计算量，以便可以将这些模型用作使用最新算法进行优化研究的有效工具包。