RESEARCH ARTICLE
Setting Reaction of Polyacid Modified Composite Resins or Compomers
J.L.R Arrondo*, 1, M.I Collado1, Soler I2, R Triana2, J Ellacuria2
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2009Volume: 3
First Page: 197
Last Page: 201
Publisher Id: TODENTJ-3-197
DOI: 10.2174/1874210600903010197
Article History:
Received Date: 02/3/2009Revision Received Date: 07/5/2009
Acceptance Date: 20/8/2009
Electronic publication date: 16/9/2009
Collection year: 2009

open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
The hardening of modified polyacid composite resins (compomers) and glass-ionomers have been studied using infrared spectroscopy. The acid-base reaction in Ketac-fil, a glass ionomer, was followed by the ratio between the COOH band located around 1715 cm-1 and that corresponding to COO- located around 1570 cm-1. The combination of infrared analysis and band narrowing treatments enable us to propose in the glass-ionomer two maturation steps. First, a very rapid equilibrium acid-base related, and second the cross-linking of polycarboxylate with the metal ions present in the cement. In compomers, a new reaction has been described involving polymerization induced by free radicals besides the two steps associated with the acid-base reaction. Using infrared spectroscopy and band narrowing techniques, it is shown that water is essential to complete the hardening process but no acid-base reaction is produced since the COO- band does not appear. The reaction associated with free radicals could be described as a polymerization of methacrylate monomers together with an aqueous dilution of the filling particles releasing different metal cations that would chelate with the polymer molecules to form a macromolecular structure.