Viscosity study in the reaction bath of the radical copolymerization of styrene divinylbenzene

We report some preliminary viscosity measurements taken during the copolymerization of Styrene Divinylbenzene in the reaction bath, near the gel point. The dependence of the viscosity η on the reaction time t is found to be : η ∼ (t c - t/tc) - 0.78 ∓ 0.1; when t c - t tc ≤ 2 × 10-2 where tc is the reaction time at which the gelation occurs. Thus the gelation process can be analyzed in terms of percolation theory.