Laser Raman Spectroscopy – An Effective Method for Total Process Control of Poly-α-Olefin Oil Production

The developed approaches to increasing the analytical selectivity by laser Raman spectroscopy and the use of chemometrics and a proprietary algorithm for self-tuning calibration models with the efficiency and speed of the method have shown a rare and excellent opportunity for informationally equivalent on-line control of all technological stages of the production of poly-α-olefin oils and other products through a network of fiber-optic probes. Oligomers of C₆, C₈, and C₁₀ α-olefins obtained by heterogeneous chromium-oxide catalysis technology developed at LLC «RN-RD CENTER», as shown by the Raman spectra, differ from analogs obtained by homogeneous synthesis by the variety of unsaturated group structures and a greater width and variability of the molecular-mass distribution, which makes it possible to regulate a wide assortment of low- and high-molecular-mass products. A special case – the atypically high sensitivity of Raman spectra to the chain length – makes it possible during the synthesis to predict and adjust in real time the molecular mass of the oligomers and other target properties and to replace a fleet of traditional analytical equipment with one method.