Impact of light intensity on the polymerization kinetics and network structure of model hydrophobic and hydrophilic methacrylate based dental adhesive resin

Abstract The impact of light intensity on the degree of conversion (DC), rate of polymerization and network structure was investigated for hydrophobic and hydrophilic dental adhesive resins. Two and three component photoinitiating (PI) systems were used in this study. Low light intensities had a negative impact on the polymerization efficiency for the hydrophilic resin with 2 component PI system. Incorporation of iodonium salt in the hydrophilic resin significantly improved the polymerization efficiency of the HEMA/BisGMA system and led to a substantial DC, even at low light intensities. The results suggested that shorter polymer chains were formed in the presence of iodonium salt. It appears that there is little or no impact of light intensity on the polymer structure of the 2 component PI system. Light intensity has subtle impact on the polymer structure of the 3 component PI system. In the case of the hydrophobic resin, the polymer is so highly cross‐linked that the presence of shorter chains for the 3 component PI system does not cause a decrease in the glass transition temperature (T_g) when compared to the 2 component PI system. For the hydrophilic resin, the presence of shorter polymer chains in the 3 component PI system reduces the T_g when compared with the corresponding 2 component PI system. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part B: Appl Biomater, 104B: 1666–1678, 2016.