Free Radical Polymerization: Photo-initiation of Polymers by Transition Metal Complexes

Photochemical or Photoinitiated Polymerizations occur when radicals are produced by light absorption. Photoinitiation of polymerization offers significant practical advantages: (1) Photoinitiation can be spatially directed and turned on or off simply by turning the light source on or off. (2) The photoinitiation rates can be controlled by a combination of the radicals source, light intensity and temperature. (3) Photoinitiation can avoid chemical contamination by initiator residues in many cases.