Investigation of thiol-ene and thiol-ene–methacrylate based resins as dental restorative materials

Objectives jective of this work was to evaluate thiol-norbornene and thiol-ene–methacrylate systems as the resin phase of dental restorative materials and demonstrate their superior performance as compared to dimethacrylate materials. s rization kinetics and overall functional group conversions were determined by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Flexural strength and modulus were determined with a 3-point flexural test. Polymerization-induced shrinkage stress was measured with a tensometer. s ene polymer systems were demonstrated to exhibit advantageous properties for dental restorative materials in regards to rapid curing kinetics, high conversion, and low shrinkage and stress. However, both the thiol-norbornene and thiol-allyl ether systems studied here exhibit significant reductions in flexural strength and modulus relative to BisGMA/TEGDMA. By utilizing the thiol-ene component as the reactive diluent in dimethacrylate systems, high flexural modulus and strength are achieved while dramatically reducing the polymerization shrinkage stress. The methacrylate–thiol-allyl ether and methacrylate–thiol-norbornene systems both exhibited equivalent flexural modulus (2.1 ± 0.1 GPa) and slightly reduced flexural strength (95 ± 1 and 101 ± 3 MPa, respectively) relative to BisGMA/TEGDMA (flexural modulus; 2.2 + 0.1 GPa and flexural strength; 112 ± 3 MPa). Both the methacrylate–thiol-allyl ether and methacrylate–thiol-norbornene systems exhibited dramatic reductions in shrinkage stress (1.1 ± 0.1 and 1.1 ± 0.2 MPa, respectively) relative to BisGMA/TEGDMA (2.6 ± 0.2 MPa). icance proved polymerization kinetics and overall functional group conversion, coupled with reductions in shrinkage stress while maintaining equivalent flexural modulus, result in a superior overall dental restorative material as compared to traditional bulk dimethacrylate resins.