Photon transmission technique for monitoring free radical crosslinking copolymerization in various crosslinker contents

Photon transmission technique was used to monitor the free radical crosslin king copolymerization (FCC) of acrylamide (AAm) and N,N'-methylenebis (acry lamide) (Bis) in time. FCC experiments were performed with various Bis cont ents. It was observed that transmitted photon intensity, I-tr decreased dra matically at a certain gelation time, which is attributed to the increase i n scattered light intensity, I-sc during macrogel formation from interconne cted microgels. Increase in I-sc was modeled using Rayleigh's equation wher e gelation time was found to be proportional to the volume of the microgels . (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.