Stochastic modeling of polymerization in a continuous flow reactor

A stochastic approach, namely, a continuous time Markov chain (Markov process), is employed to analyze and model, in a unified fashion, both polymerization and dispersive mixing in a continuous flow reactor. Results include the distribution of numbers of active and dead polymers with chain length j both inside the reactor and at the exit. This approach can be extended to the determination of the degree of polymerization of a copolymer. Expressions are derived for the mean and variance of the number of monomers of a given type in a copolymer chain. The model can be applied to both the time homogeneous and heterogeneous processes.