Free radical macrophotoinitiators: an overview on recent advances

This paper provides an overview of the recent advances on polymeric photoinitiators for UV curing. During the last decade, significant developments have been achieved in the synthesis of macrophotoinitiators, due to the advantages derived of their macromolecular nature, in comparison with their corresponding low molecular weight analogues. In particular, a variety of macromolecules containing the two main types of free radical photoinitiators: hydrogen-abstracting (thioxanthone, benzil, anthraquinone, camphorquinone) and photofragmenting chromophores (benzoin ether, acylphosphine oxides) are described. For hydrogen-abstracting photoinitiator, the photoinitiation activity have been examined in terms of volume and nature of substituent in the polymeric coil, and their influence to prevent the recombination of radicals favouring their reaction with the monomer. Also, copolymers bearing chromophore and amine groups with potential synergistic effects of activity are reported. It has been found that the approach of the tertiary amine to the chromophore to produce the corresponding exciplexes is dependent on both the monomeric or polymeric nature of chromophore and the tertiary amine. Type II polymeric photoinitiators, such as benzoin ether derivatives having the benzoin methyl ether moieties connected to the main chain through the benzyl aromatic are reported. And a fragmentation mechanism involving the formation of an stable quinoid structure and aliphatic acyl radical is proposed for the above copolymers, which would justified their lower initiating efficiency than the corresponding low molecular weight model. In addition, polymers bearing phosphine oxide moieties are described. The efficiency in the polymerisation of all photoinitiators was found to be similar and irrespective of the presence of flexible spacer in their structure. However, it was found that the flexible oligomethylene spacer enhanced the compatibility of the new polymeric photoinitiators in acrylic adhesive formulations. Finally, polysilanes as photoinitiators are reported. Under UV irradiation, polysilanes undergo main-chain scission leading to free silyl radicals capable of reacting with olefinic monomers. The silyl radicals generated by photolysis can be oxidised by appropriate onium salts to yield cationic initiating species (photoinitiated radical promoted cationic polymerisation). The photoinitiation efficiency of polysilanes having different aliphatic and aromatic side groups has been investigated and compared with commercial low molecular weight photoinitiators as benzoin. © 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.