POLYMER SOLUTION PREHEATER AND METHOD FOR PREHEATING SUCH SOLUTIONS

摘要

A polymer devolatilization preheater (10) and a method for using the same to preheat a polymer/solvent solution. The preheater (10) includes an elongated, upright hollow vessel (12) defining a heating chamber (14). An inlet (16) is located adjacent the upper end (18) of the chamber (14) and an outlet (20) is located adjacent the lower end (22) of the chamber (14). A plurality of heating tube bundles (26, 28, 30) are mounted in the chamber (14), each bundle including a plurality of elongated serpentine heating tubes which are each arranged in a configuration having a major axis which extends across the chamber in a direction transverse to the longitudinal axis of the vessel. Each tube (32, 34) includes a plurality of curved tube portions (36) and a plurality of linking tube portions (38) which interconnect the curved tube portions. The tube portions (36) of each tube are all arranged in common plane that is arranged in essential parallelism relative to the longitudinal axis of the vessel and the tube configuration is essentially rectangular so as to present a pair of opposite edges disposed in essential parallelism relative to one another.