General Introduction to UV-initiated Radical Polymerization

It should be noted that, due to the time control of curing, these resin systems are ideally suited for fundamental kinetic investigations, especially combined with analytical techniques like real-time infrared spectroscopy. These investigations have 

A standard UV-curable acrylate resin formulation consists of at least three ingredients a photoinitiator, an acrylate resin, and a reactive diluent. 

The UV curing process is strongly dependent on the photoinitiator. In fact, by the choice of photoinitiator the chemistry can be altered completely. There are fundamentally different photoinitiators that can be used for three different chemistries  

Around 90-95% of all UV curing processes are radical initiated polymerizations. Consequently, radical UV curing will be discussed in more detail below, while cationic and base-mediated curing will be discussed briefly in separate sections. 

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