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Project

Thick film thickness and hydrophobic dental adhesive technology for improved hydrolysis-resistant bonding to dentin.

Dental adhesives are indispensable in modern restorative dentistry. They enable adhesion of resin-based restorative and luting materials to hard tooth tissues. Dental adhesion today implies using one of two approaches, namely the etch-and-rinse (E&R) or self-etch (SE) bonding mode. E&R involves simultaneous etching of enamel and dentin using phosphoric acid. SE simplifies adhesion by bypassing the E&R process through incorporation of functional monomers with acidic groups into SE primer/adhesives, by which etching and priming are combined. The newest generation consists of ‘universal’ adhesives (UAs) that can be applied according to the dentist’s personal choice in (1) full E&R, (2) full SE, or (3) the preferred combined E&R/SE mode. UAs should be regarded as ‘trade-off’ adhesives that combine the primer with the adhesive resin in a single UA solution, enabling simplified and fast clinical bonding procedures with (claimed) low technique sensitivity, but however mostly at the expense of bond durability. The main bond-degradation pathways are (1) water sorption inducing hydrolytic bond-degradation mechanisms and (2) enzymatic (MMPs and cathepsins) bio-degradation.  This PhD project will focus on attempting to render the adhesive-dentin interface long-term stability in the wet oral environment. We hypothesize that interfacial stability can be reached if the interface is (1) hydrophobically sealed so that water uptake/transmission across the interface is limited/obstructed and (2) the hybrid layer is covered/protected by a sufficiently thick adhesive-resin layer with interfacial stress-absorption potential.

Date:27 Sep 2019 →  8 Dec 2023
Keywords:dental adhesive, universal adhesive, bond durability, film thickness
Disciplines:Dental materials and equipment
Project type:PhD project