Theory of Gel Formation

Abstract

A theory of drop-wise addition polymerization is developed. Because of the linear growth of the reaction volume V, the system gives rise to a new type of distribution function for cyclic species that can be expressed by the sum of two terms: the conventional distribution term and a extra term due to the dilution effect. The present result is an extension of the conventional homogeneous polymerization that corresponds to a special case without the extra term. Making use of the result we derive the gel point formula for this unique polymerization. The theoretical result is compared with the recent observations.