New monomers for dental application

The currently used commercial restoratives composites and self-etching enamel-dentin adhesives usually contain various functionalised and cross-linking methacrylates. New developments of polymeric composites for restorative filling materials are mainly focused on the reduction of the polymerization shrinkage and improvement of biocompatibility and wear resistance. This can be partially achieved by using new monomers, for example, cyclic monomers for the radical polymerisation such as bicyclic cyclopropyl-acrylates or polycondensates generated by the hydrolytic condensation of triethoxypropyl si lane dimethacrylates. In the presence of water and strongly acidic monomers, methacrylates undergo hydrolysis, which results in decrease of the performance of the adhesive. This problem can be overcome with new polymerizable acrylic phosphonic acids and cross-linking bis(acrylamide)s, which show improved hydrolytic stability.