ABSTRACT
Devolatilization of a polymer is typically a two-phase process that takes place when the vapor pressure of the component to be stripped is higher than its partial pressure in the gas phase. No devolatilization occurs before the slit entrance because the pressure in that region is sufficiently high so that no driving force for devolatilization exists. The modeling of the slit devolatilizer is developed in the classical framework of transport phenomena. The flow rate that can be actually processed in a single slit under acceptable devolatilization conditions is quite low for any industrial process, which, in fact, is performed by means of a multislit configuration. The single-slit unit is in fact capable of performing a bulk separation, but only working at relatively small flow rates. As a consequence, actual industrial processes are carried out with multislit devices.
