Study of network formation in furfuryl methacrylate photopolymerisation at different temperatures. The Tobita method applied to the polymerisation at low conversions

The kinetics modelling of furfuryl methacrylate photopolymerisation using the method of moments has enabled to obtain the concentrations of radicals and pendant groups in the networks formed at different temperatures. The analysis of these results has shown which simple step of the polymerisation mechanism is favoured according to the reaction temperature. For example, at a temperature of 283 K, intermolecular degradative transfer to the furan ring plays an important role in network formation. On the other hand, some results obtained by kinetics modelling were used to evaluate the crosslink density of the network. With this aim, the Tobita pseudo-kinetics constants method was applied to the polymerisation at low conversions. The values of crosslink density obtained by means of kinetics modelling and the Tobita method were in good agreement.