Method for selecting photoinitiator systems

A method of selecting photoinitiator systems for photopolymer formulations, said method comprising

• a) selecting a photoinitiator system comprising at least one sensitizer and at least one coinitiator,
• b) establishing the photoinitiator system's reaction mechanism to include the transition of the sensitizer or sensitizers into an electronically excited state or, respectively, electronically excited states by absorption of electromagnetic radiation and the reaction which is referred to as the initiation reaction in subsequent steps whereby the sensitizer in the electronically excited state or the sensitizers in electronically excited states react(s) with the coinitiator(s) to form at least one free radical and further products, these products being dependent on the particular photoinitiator system,
• c) generating the three-dimensional molecular geometries of the sensitizer(s), of the coinitiator(s) and also of all initiation reaction intermediate and end products defined by the reaction mechanism and then subjecting these to a conformer analysis on the basis of a force field method,
• d) optimizing the molecular geometries of the structures from step c) having the lowest relative force field energy in each case quantum-chemically in the electronic ground state and determining the absolute electronic energies of the optimized structures,
• e) computing the excitation energies and oscillator strengths of the electronic absorption spectrum of the sensitizer(s) using the quantum-chemical time-dependent density-functional theory method and correcting the excitation energies for their systematic error,
• f) optimizing the molecular geometries of all sensitizers in the excited electronic states relevant with regard to the coinitiation reaction, on a density-functional theoretical level and determining the absolute electronic energies,
• g) computing the reaction energies of all component reactions of the mechanism established in step b), and
• h) classifying the photoinitiator system as suitable when the excitation frequency determined in step e) is in a ±50 nm interval around the exposure light wavelength and has an oscillator strength greater than 0.2 and when at the same time all reactive energies computed under g) are negative.