Water sorption characteristics of light-cured dental resins and composites based on Bis-EMA/PCDMA

The water uptake characteristics of resins and composites based on an ethoxylated bisphenol A glycol dimethacrylate (Bis-EMA) and a polycarbonate dimethacrylate (PCDMA) were studied in detail. Polydimethacrylate resins were prepared by photopolymerization of the neat monomers and mixtures of them with various weight ratios, using the camphoroquinone/N,N-dimethylaminoethyl methacrylate system as initiator, while the composites were prepared from the light-curing of commercial samples (Sculpt-It and Alert). Water sorption/desorption was examined both in equilibrium and dynamic conditions in two adjacent sorption-desorption cycles. The equilibrium water uptake from all resins was very small with a trend to increase as the amount of PCDMA was increased. The inverse effect was observed in the solubility values. The composites studied exhibited also very low water uptake values in comparison to other composite materials reported in the literature. It was also observed that the equilibrium uptake decreased with increasing filler loading. Slightly larger equilibrium water uptake and much smaller solubility values were obtained during the second sorption-desorption cycle in comparison to the first one. Concerning the sorption rate data, it was observed that the resin materials followed Fickian diffusion during almost the whole sorption or desorption curve, while the composites showed this behavior until only M(t)/M( infinity ) congruent with 0.5. The diffusion coefficients calculated for the resins were larger than those of the composites and always higher during desorption compared to sorption. The values of the diffusion coefficients for both resins and composites were in the same order of magnitude with the values of the corresponding materials reported in the literature.