Developement of the reinforced acrylic-based hybrid denture composite resin with vinyloligosilsesquioxane (POSS)

The mainly used polymeric material for the denture is PMMA because of its cost and easiness to handle. So it was widely used material among dentists for past decades. But the acrylic-based denture materials have several common weak points such as shrinkage after curing and lack of strength. In order to solve these problems, we adapted one of hybrid system using acrylic polymer and vinyloligosilsesquioxane(POSS). POSS, which is a well known expandable monomer during polymerization process, may eventually suppress volumetric shrinkage. And the hybrid system makes it possible for the polymer to be stable in various severe conditions. Eight different kinds of samples were designed and synthesized. Each samples were characterized with dynamic mechanical analyser(DMA) to confirm their thermodynamic properties, fractured to analyze the cross-sectional morphology of the samples. And elongation, flexural and impact tests were also executed to evaluate the mechanical properties of the samples. From the results, hybrid composites had well defined crosslinked network structure compared to the widely used denture materials, and the mechanical strength improved without changing any surface condition as increment with POSS ratio in hybrid system. Fractured morphology showed homogeneous surfaces in spite of mutli component system, therefore we can conclude that the adoption of the POSS brought the reinforcement of the denture resin.