This study focuses on the design and development of novel monovinylic (meth)acrylate monomerswith enhanced polymerization kinetics and the evaluation of their performance as reactive diluents in diacrylatesystems. Novel (meth)acrylic monomers characterized by several new secondary functionalities are developed inthis study and are shown to exhibit reactivities 10-70 fold greater than traditional monoacrylates such as hexylacrylate. These monomers were designed based on our understanding of interactions between monomer structure,polymerizations kinetics, and polymer properties. Performance of these monovinyl monomers as reactive diluentsis also investigated in this study. Copolymerization of these monomers with diacrylates enhanced both the reactivityand the mechanical properties of the diacrylate system. Specifically, while copolymerization of a diacrylate systemwith traditional monoacrylates such as hexyl acrylate decreases the overall reactivity of the system, itscopolymerization with the novel monomers led to comonomer mixtures that were 30-50% more reactive thaneither of the individual components, with initial polymerization rates increased by as much as 2 times that of themore reactive component. Furthermore, the copolymerization of these novel monovinyl systems with diacrylatesalso enabled formation of polymers with enhanced mechanical properties over the corresponding diacrylatesincluding a more homogeneous network structure as indicated by a glass transition temperature that was narrowedby up to 55% while increasing the glass transition temperature by as much as 10
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