A new approach of the photoinitiator reactivity

Abstract

New techniques for the investigation of primary processes involved in photopolymerisation reactions are presented. Besides the well known time resolved laser absorption spectroscopy techniques operating in the nanosecond or picosecond time scale, experimental techniques such laser induced photoacoustic calorimetry or nanosecond laser induced step scan FTIR, recently introduced in our lab, are discussed with respect to their applications for the investigation of photopolymerization processes, specially the possibility to gain informations on the excited states which were not easily accessible up to now. On the other hand, molecular modeling results obtained at high level of theory are shown to provide unique thermodynamical data on the processes that govern the overall efficiency of the photoinitiating systems. A new approach that combines both aspects is developed and presented on the basis of recent selected examples.