When Polymer Reaction Engineers Play Dice: Applications of Monte Carlo Models in PRE

Monte Carlo methods are heuristic algorithms that use probabilities to select an outcome among several possible events in a given process. Monte Carlo methods are useful in polymer reaction engineering because they can predict the molecular architecture of polymers with details that cannot be easily captured by any other modeling technique. One of the advantages of Monte Carlo simulation is that one does not need to solve differential or algebraic equations to predict the microstructures of polymers. This article reviews the literature on steady-state and dynamic Monte Carlo methods in polymer reaction engineering. We hope to convince the readers that playing dice regularly can be a great asset to polymer reactors engineers.