Radical depletion model for intensity effects on photopolymerization

Photopolymerization behavior of suspensions based on monomers is determined by the curing kinetics of the monomer, the concentration of photoactives such as photoinitiator, inert dye or inhibitor, and the conditions of polymerization such as light intensity. We present a Radical depletion model, an extended Inhibitor exhaustion model, in terms of minimum light intensity that is required for initiation of the photopolymerization. The validity of this model was tested on a series of (meth)acrylate suspensions with varying the photoactives concentration in the intensity range ∼8–40 mW/cm2.