Copolymers of dyes and acrylamide

Claim 1

A structurally dyed, water insoluble, macromolecular material containing in copolymerized form, acrylamide, at least one azo, anthraquinone, pyrazolanthrone or phthalocyanine dye having at least one group of the formula: ##STR11## wherein R 1 is hydrogen or alkyl having 1 to 4 carbon atoms, R 2 is hydrogen, halogen, cyano, carboxy, carbonamido or alkoxycarbonyl with 1 to 4 carbons in the alkoxy chain, said groups being attached to a cyclic carbon atom of an aromatic nucleus of the dye molecule either directly or through an oxygen or sulfur atom or a ##STR12## R 3 being hydrogen or alkyl with 1 to 4 carbon atoms, at least one colorless base monomer selected from the group consisting of: styrene and its substituted derivatives, divinylbenzene, polybutadiene oligomers having vinyl groups, acrylic, methacrylic, crotonic, chloroacrylic, maleic, and itaconic acids and their anhydrides, nitriles, esters, amides, N-monoalkyl amides and N-dialkylamides, ethyleneglycol diacrylate, methylene-bis-acrylamide and methylene-bis-methacrylamide, vinyl esters of saturated carboxylic acids, vinyl halides and vinylidene halides, vinylpyridines, vinylpyrrolidines, vinylquinolines, and N-vinyl-imidazole, N-vinyl-carbazole, N-vinyl-pyrolidones of N-vinyl-caprolactam, obtained by first copolymerizing for 30 seconds to 5 minutes, in an aqueous medium and at a temperature from 0° C. to 100° C., in the presence of a tetravalent cerium complex as initiator, the dye with the acrylamide to form a reactive prepolymer, and then reacting in situ said prepolymers with the base monomer and the remaining free dye and acrylamide, the amount of dye being from 0.1 to 25% by weight of the base monomer and the amount of acrylamide being from 0.5 to 50% by weight of the base monomer.