Crosslink kinetics and properties of styrene based copolymers

A. BARBARINI; D. M. MARTINO

Golden, CO, USA

Otro; ACS Summer School on Green Chemistry and Sustainable Energy, Colorado School of Mines; 2009

The effect of irradiation light intensity, film thickness and polymer composition upon photo-irradiation of water-soluble polymers containing thymine was studied. The curing process involved the irradiation of the copolymer films with a short wavelength UV (254 nm) for different times leading to film immobilization on the substrate. The light-induced crosslinking reaction was followed by UV-vis spectroscopy and the immobilization point was determined. The kinetics of the crosslinking process pointed to be a second order process. The effect of irradiation dose is similar to the typical behavior of photo-resists: the degree of crosslink increases over the time until it reaches saturation. The effect of film thickness was as expected, the thicker the film the slower the immobilization of the polymer on the substrate. It was demonstrated that by varying these parameters one could control the crosslinking rate of the polymer.