MACROMOLECULAR SYMPOSIA, vol.202, pp.189-198, 2003 (Journal Indexed in SCI)
Methyl methacrylate (MMA), ethyl methacrylate (EMA) and various combinations of MMA with EMA were used during FCC experiments. Pyrene (P-y) was introduced as a fluorescence probe and fluorescence lifetimes from its decay traces were measured during sol-gel phase transitions. The fast transient fluorescence (FTRF) technique was used to study the critical exponents during sol-gel phase transition in free-radical crosslinking copolymerization (FCC). The results were interpreted in the view of percolation theory. The critical exponents of gel fraction, beta and weight average degree of polymerization, gamma were measured near the point of gel effect and found to be around 0.37 +/- 0.015 and 1.69 +/- 0.05 in all systems studied respectively.