Photopolymerization of acrylonitrile sensitized by aryl ketones combining with aliphatic tertiary amines or aryl amines has been studied. Among fluorenon-9(FL)

acenaphthenequinone. anthraquinone

p-benzoquinone and benzophenone

fluorenon is the most effective when it combines with aliphatic tertrary amine or DMAEM to form the photo-redox system for the acrylonitrile (AN) photopolymerization. From the kinetic study for the photopolymer ization of AN sensitized by FL-DMAEM system

the polymerization rate is proportional to 0.27th po-wer of DMAEM concentration

0.27th power of FL concentration and 0.64th

1.74th power of AN concentration performed in DMF

benzene as solvent respectively. The overall activa-tion energy for the polymerization was obtained as 6.6 kcal/mol. The mechanism of the pho-topolymerization of AN sensitized by using PF-DMAEM system as photo-sensitizer may be via the formation of 9-hydroxy-9-fluorenyl free radical and DMAEM free radical under the UV irradiation. The latter would cause the polymerization mainly.