The kinetics of photoinitiated, inverse emulsion polymerization of acrylamide with 2,2-dimethoxy-2-phenylacetophenone (DMPA) as a photoinitiator was investigated under three different cases. First, in a quartz reactor transparent to full UV light, the polymerization rate (RP) increased and then decreased with the change of initiator order from 0.27 to a negative value when the DMPA concentration was increased, and it was particularly unusual that monomer orders at different DMPA concentrations were lower than the first. Second, for polymerization without DMPA in a quartz reactor, the dependence of R-P on monomer concentration was similar to that of R-P on initiator concentration in the aforementioned case. Third, when polymerization was carried out in a Pyrex reactor where the far UV light was filtered, a peak rate was also observed, and initiator orders varied from 0.24 to a negative value; however, under this case monomer orders at different initiator concentrations were greater than the first. These results indicated that the effect of absorbance often observed in bulk or solution photopolymerization also existed in this system, and the self-initiation of monomer had some influence on polymerization, and the role of primary radical termination could not be neglected, as evidenced by kinetic analysis. (C) 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.