Abstract
During the past decade significant advances have been made in developing an understanding of the underlying physics controlling the gelation process in a variety of systems. Of particular interest has been the desire to explore gelation in terms of critical phenomena using critical point exponents for diverging static quantities, such as the weight average molecular weight and cluster sizes. This has encompassed tests of scaling predictions from the Flory-Stockmayer (FS) mean field theory and also percolation models at the gelation threshold.1–3 Of more recent interest has been the desire to examine the gelation critical point using dynamics.4–8 Predictions and experimental values for the divergence exponents of the zero shear rate viscosity and modulus near the gel point have been reported for a number of systems.9–11 However problems exist comparing theory and experiment because of the inability to perform a true zero shear rate experiment particularly given the divergence of the longest relaxation time in the gelling solution.
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