Patent ID: 6673878
Filing Date: 2004-01-06
Classification: B01J,C08F

Abstract:
A process for the polymerization of ethylene comprising:(a) combining fresh monomer and recycled monomer and compressing the combined monomer and supplying the monomer using multiple feeds to multiple reaction zones in a tubular reactor for polymerization by a free radical initiator to form a monomer-polymer mixture; (b) separating the mixture into a volatile monomer-rich phase and molten polymer-rich phase; (c) recycling for compression said monomer-rich phase and supplying said monomer-rich phase to the reactor; and (d) introducing transfer agent into the reactor to modify the molecular weight of the polymer; wherein the transfer agent comprises a chain terminating transfer agent having a transfer coefficient of greater than 0.01, said transfer agent being in a transfer agent rich stream separately from a transfer agent-poor monomer stream of the transfer agent, to a polymerization reaction zone upstream of at least one downstream reaction zone receiving the transfer agent-poor stream so as to achieve a depletion in the concentration of the transfer agent in said at least one downstream reaction zone.