PHOTOINITIATED CATIONIC POLYMERIZATION OF MULTIFUNCTIONAL SYSTEMS

Different types of tridimensional polymer networks have been synthetis ed by photoinitiated cationic polymerisation of vinyl ether and epoxy- functionalised oligomers and polymers. The polymerisation kinetics was followed by real-time infrared (RTIR) spectroscopy, a technique that records directly conversion versus time profiles in a timescale as sho rt as 1 s. The addition of a diacrylate monomer was shown to accelerat e the ring-opening polymerisation of epoxidized polyisoprene, with for mation of interpenetrating polymer networks having well contrasted pro perties. A dual polymer network has been generated by photocrosslinkin g of a polyisoprene functionalised with both epoxy and acrylate groups .