NOVEL MOLECULAR COMPOSITE DENTAL MATERIALS

牙科材料领域从基础研究中受益匪浅 在无机、有机和聚合物化学方面。三大类 牙科材料已被开发并应用于牙科实践：(L) 无机/陶瓷材料(如汞齐和硅酸盐水泥)，(2) 有机聚合物(如聚丙烯酸酯树脂)和(3)聚合物复合材料 无机填料与聚合物按一定比例混合的材料 宏观层面。所有这些材料，尽管在一些方面取得了成功 在不断修改的情况下，具有许多固有的缺陷 他们的牙科申请。 我们一直有兴趣通过以下方式从根本上改变这种情况 创造了一种新型的牙科材料。由NIH资助(批准号： ROL-DE09848)在过去的三年中，我们成功地合成了这样的 一类牙科材料，它以共价且均匀地结合在一起 通过分子水平将有机聚合物转化为无机基质 新出现的溶胶-凝胶技术。这些分子复合材料 展示了无机玻璃硬度的量体裁衣组合 以及有机聚合物的韧性。没有宏观的阶段 在这些材料中分离，从而存在界面问题 在传统的牙科复合材料中已被淘汰。更令人兴奋的是， 我们发现这些新材料的形成是可以实现的 从光化学角度来说。这一发现对该领域尤为重要 因为最常见的牙科临床材料之一 实践是在紫外线照射下固化牙科树脂。 在这个提案中，我们设计了一系列新的深入研究来开发 对化学/光化学过程有基本的了解 导致这些新材料的形成，并改善 合成和性能。具体来说，动力学研究将是 对光/非光催化的溶胶-凝胶反应进行了研究 无机前驱体功能化聚(甲基丙烯酸甲酯) 硅和/或钛四醇氧化物。所获得的基本知识将 应用于设计更好的综合策略，以解决最大 在溶胶-凝胶反应中具有挑战性的问题，即体积收缩， 开裂和长的固化时间，所有这些都是非常不理想的 牙科诊所。新的合成将允许我们控制和定制 这类新材料的物理/化学性能甚至 更适合牙科应用。此外，这些材料将是 经过彻底的表征和测试。它们的性质，如硬度。 韧性、对牙齿结构的粘附性、耐磨性和耐磨性， 稳定性等将直接与现有的牙科进行比较 复合材料。这项研究的成功将为 为未来这一新类别的临床应用奠定基础 材料。

The field of dental materials has benefitted greatly from basic research in inorganic, organic and polymer chemistry. Three major classes of dental materials have been developed and used in dental practice: (l) inorganic/ceramic materials (e.g. amalgams and silicate cements), (2) organic polymers (e.g. polyacrylate resins) and (3) polymer composite materials in which inorganic fillers are mixed with a polymer at a macroscopic level. All of these materials, though succeeded in some extent under constant modifications, have many inherent deficiencies in their dental applications. We have been interested in making a radical change of this situation by creating a novel class of dental materials. Funded by NIH (Grant No. ROl-DE09848) in the last 3 years, we have successfully synthesized such a class of dental materials, which covalently and uniformly incorporates organic polymers into inorganic matrices at the molecular level via the newly emerged sol-gel technology. These molecular composite materials demonstrated tailored combinations of the hardness of inorganic glasses and the toughness of organic polymers. There is no macroscopic phase separation in these materials so that the interface problems as exist in the conventional dental composites are eliminated. More excitingly, we discovered that the formation of these new materials can be achieved photochemically. This discovery is particularly important to the field of dental materials because one of the most common dental clinical practices is to cure the dental resins under ultraviolet radiation. In this proposal, we design a series of new in-depth studies to develop a fundamental understanding of the chemical/photochemical process that lead to the formation of these novel materials and to improve the synthesis and properties. Specifically, kinetic studies will be conducted on the photo-/nonphoto-catalyzed sol-gel reactions of the functionalized poly(methyl methacrylates) with the inorganic precursors silicon and/or titanium tetraalkoxides. The basic knowledge gained will be applied to design better synthetic strategies to solve the most challenging problems in the sol-gel reactions, i.e. volume shrinkage, cracking, and long curing time, all of which are highly undesirable in dental practice. The new synthesis will allow us to control and tailor the physical/chemical properties of this new class of materials even better for the dental applications. Moreover, the materials will be thoroughly characterized and tested. Their properties, such as hardness. toughness, adhesion to tooth structure, resistance to wear and abrasion, stability etc. will be directly compared with the existing dental composite materials. The success of this research will lay the foundation for future clinical application of this new class of materials.