Study on critical behaviour in N-isopropyl acrylamide gels by using fluorescence technique

The steady state fluorescence (SSF) technique was used to study the sol-gel transition for the solution free radical crosslinking copolymerization of N-isopropyl acrylamide (NIPA), with N,N'-methylenebis (acrylamide) (BIS) as crosslinker in the presence of ammonium persulfate (APS) as an initiator. Pyranine (8-hydroxypyrene-1,3,6-trisulfonic acid, trisodium salt, HPTS) was used as a floroprobe for monitoring the polymerization. Pyranine molecules start to bind to NIPA polymer chains upon the initiation of the polymerization, thus the spectra of the bonded pyranines shift to the shorter wavelengths. The gel fraction exponent and the weight average degree of polymerization exponent ' agree best with the mean-field (Flory-Stockmayer) results near the gel point for various crosslinker contents.