Thiol/ene reactions have previously been developed as a high speed alternative to radical polymerizations. These reactions are radical polymerizations that proceed rapidly, even in the presence of oxygen; however, the mechanism is generally thought to be a step growth mechanism in which chain transfer to the thiol and propagation proceed sequentially. This mechanism leads to the formation of a network structure only when the functionality of either the thiol or the vinyl is greater than two.

    Project Focus:  In this work, we will study three different aspects of the thiol/ene systems related to improved fundamental understanding of these promising systems, development of novel methods for polymerizing these systems, and development of an advanced photocurable thiol/ene resin.

Specifically, we propose to:

i) synthesizing a variety of acrylates with systematically varying functional groups that serve as model compounds for the characterization studies; and

ii) characterizing the polymerizations and polymers that result from these monomers with a focus on determining the underlying reasons for monomer reactivity and improved properties.