Patent ID: 7645842

Claim:
A process for free-radically polymerizing one or more ethylenically unsaturated compounds, comprising: initially charging, at least 80.0% by weight of the one or more ethylenically unsaturated compounds, based on the total weight of the ethylenically unsaturated compounds, to a reactor; and adding at least one polymerization initiator for the free-radical polymerization to the reactor in at least two continuous metered steps; wherein the second continuous metered step is begun at a time at which from 0.01 to 50.0% of a total amount of the polymerization initiator added during the first continuous metered step is not consumed, more polymerization initiator is added in the second step than in the first step, and a ratio of a mean metering rate of the second step to a mean metering rate of the first step is greater than 1.2:1.