Method of continuously photopolymerizing water soluble vinyl monomer

Abstract

Abstract @ Disclosed is a method of carrying out continuous photopolymerization of water soluble vinyl monomer, comprising adding a photoinitiator to an aqueous solution containing 20 to 90% of a water soluble vinyl monomer, and carrying out the polymerization on a moving carrier under irradiation with light, wherein; a) the moving carrier is a metalic moving carrier provided on both edges parallel to the moving direction thereof with a pair of flexible belt-like edge-dams with predetermined height; b) an upper surface of area formed between the pair of edge-dams is covered with a light-transmissive film; and c) a space defined by the metalic carrier, the pair of edge-dams and the film is filled with the aqueous solution of the monomer to carry out the irradiation with light from upper surface of the film. According to this invention, a water soluble polymer having high polymerization degree and high molecular weight can be obtained, because of the photopolymerization is carried out under such environment that may be hardly affected by the polymerization inibitory action by oxygen. Also, it is not necessary at all to incessantly pass nitrogen to exclude oxygen, and therefore there is no fear that starting materials are scattered out of the system along with nitrogen stream to pollute work environment, even if volatile starting materials are used.

Inventors

• 👤 Akihisa Nitto Chem. Ind. Co. Ltd. Furuno
• 👤 Teruhiko Sugimori
• 👤 Ken-Ichi Inukai
• 👤 Hideaki Habara

Bibliographic Details