POLYMER DEVOLATILIZATION PREHEATER AND METHOD FOR THE PREHEATING

摘要

A polymer devolatilization preheater comprising: an elongated, upright hollow vessel defining a heating chamber having an upper end, a lower end, and a longitudinal axis extending between said ends, said vessel including an inlet for a polymer/solvent solution located adjacent said upper end of said chamber and a molten polymer outlet located adjacent said lower end of said chamber; and at least one heating tube bundle in said chamber, said bundle including at least one elongated serpentine heating tube arranged in a configuration having a major axis which extends across said chamber in a direction transverse to said longitudinal axis, said tube being positioned such that said polymer/solvent solution comes into heat transferring contact with an outer surface thereof as the polymer/solvent solution flows along a path that extends along said longitudinal axis from said polymer/solvent solution inlet toward said polymer outlet said tube being disposed in a plane arranged in essential parallelism relative to said longitudinal axis and comprising a plurality of curved tube portions and a plurality of linking tube portions which interconnect said curved tube portions.