Photo-induced cross-linking of divinyl ethers by using diphenyliodonium salts with highly nucleophilic counter anions in the presence of zinc halides

This study describes the use of diphenyliodonium salts with highly nucleophilic counter anions to photoinitiate the cationic cross-linking of divinyl ethers. Both direct and indirect initiating modes are used. In the direct acting system, only a diphenyliodonium salt with a highly nucleophilic counter anion and a zinc halide are employed as initiator and activator, respectively. In the indirect systems, in addition to direct system components, photosensitive additives such as anthrecene, perylene, 2,2-dimethoxy-2-phenyl acetophenone, benzophenone, and thioxanthone, which absorb the energy of the incident light and activate the iodonium salt, are used to initiate polymerization. All systems employed in this study initiated quite vigorous polymerizations.