Study of network formation in furfuryl methacrylate photopolymerisation atdifferent temperatures. The Tobita method applied to the polymerisation atlow conversions

The kinetics modelling of furfuryl methacrylate photopolymerisation using t he method of moments has enabled to obtain the concentrations of radicals a nd pendant groups in the networks formed at different temperatures. The ana lysis of these results has shown which simple step of the polymerisation me chanism is favoured according to the reaction temperature. For example, at a temperature of 283 K, intermolecular degradative transfer to the furan ri ng plays an important rote in network formation. On the other hand, some re sults obtained by kinetics modelling were used to evaluate the crosslink de nsity of the network. With this aim, the Tobita pseudo-kinetics constants m ethod was applied to the polymerisation at low conversions. The values of c rosslink density obtained by means of kinetics modelling and the Tobita met hod were in good agreement. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reser ved.