polymers Article Thiol–Ene Photopolymerization: Scaling Law and Analytical Formulas for Conversion Based on Kinetic Rate and Thiol–Ene Molar Ratio Kuo-Ti Chen 1, Da-Chuan Cheng 2, Jui-Teng Lin 3 and Hsia-Wei Liu 4,* 1 Graduate Institute of Applied Science and Engineering, Fu Jen Catholic University, New Taipei City 24205, Taiwan;
[email protected] 2 Department of Biomedical Imaging and Radiological Science, China Medical University, Taizhong 400, Taiwan;
[email protected] 3 New Vision, Inc., New Taipei City 242, Taiwan;
[email protected] 4 Department of Life Science, Fu Jen Catholic University, New Taipei City 24205, Taiwan * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +886-0910-688-968 Received: 22 September 2019; Accepted: 7 October 2019; Published: 10 October 2019 Abstract: Kinetics and analytical formulas for radical-mediated thiol–ene photopolymerization were developed in this paper. The conversion efficacy of thiol–ene systems was studied for various propagation to chain transfer kinetic rate-ratio (RK), and thiol–ene concentration molar-ratio (RC). Numerical data were analyzed using analytical formulas and compared with the experimental data. We demonstrated that our model for a thiol–acrylate system with homopolymerization effects, and for a thiol–norbornene system with viscosity effects, fit much better with the measured data than a previous model excluding these effects. The general features for the roles of RK and RC on the conversion efficacy of thiol (CT) and ene (CV) are: (i) for RK = 1, CV and CT have the same temporal profiles, but have a reversed dependence on RC; (ii) for RK >> 1, CT are almost independent of RC; (iii) for RK << 1, CV and CT have the same profiles and both are decreasing functions of the homopolymerization effects defined by kCV; (iv) viscosity does not affect the efficacy in the case of RK >> 1, but reduces the efficacy of CV for other values of RK.