Monitoring frontal photopolymerization by electroresistance

The frontal photopolymerization of acrylates was conducted in tube with TPO as bleachable photoinitiator and was identified to reach complete conversion in the formed polymer phase. The spatiotemporal temperature profiles of the frontal photopolymerization of acrylates were detected with a series of immobilized thermocouples along with the reactor. Monomer with high functionality resulted great summit temperature and was favorable for accelerating the traveling of polymerization front. It was found that the front traveling may be affected by the protruded thermocouples head. Based on the sudden increase of electrical resistance during rapid photopolymerization, an electrical measurement was setup to follow the front traveling of frontal photopolymerization.