Polyacrylamide (PAM) is a water-soluble polymer made from acrylamide monomer (AM) through free radical polymerization. It is primarily used as a flocculant, thickener, drag reducer, and soil conditioner, and is widely used in water treatment, papermaking, oil extraction, and mining.

Production Process Steps:

Acrylamide Monomer Preparation

Acrylonitrile is used as the raw material and is produced through a hydration reaction.

Copper catalysts or enzyme catalysis are primarily used to ensure monomer purity.

Polymerization Reaction

An acrylamide monomer solution is added to an initiator (such as ammonium persulfate, peroxide, or photoinitiator).

Free radical polymerization occurs under specific temperature and pH conditions and can be accomplished through solution polymerization, emulsion polymerization, or gel polymerization.

Polymer Formation

After the reaction, a polyacrylamide hydrogel or emulsion is obtained.

PAM is then dried, pulverized, and sieved to obtain a solid powder;

or it can be directly produced as an emulsion or solution.

Post-Processing and Packaging

Drying (hot air drying/vacuum drying)

Pulling and Sieving (to obtain products of varying molecular weights and particle sizes)

Testing (molecular weight, ionic type, solids content, etc.)

Packaging (25kg bags, ton bags, etc.)

Process Flowchart (Brief Description)

Acrylonitrile → Hydration → Acrylamide Monomer → Polymerization (Solution/Emulsion/Gel Polymerization) → Polyacrylamide → Drying → Pulping → Packaging

Features:

Wide molecular weight range (several million to over 20 million)

Can be made into cationic, anionic, nonionic, and zwitterionic forms

Widely used, especially as a high-efficiency flocculant in water treatment