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Nanophase separation of polymers exposed to simulated bonding conditions
Author(s) -
Ye Qiang,
Wang Yong,
Spencer Paulette
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
journal of biomedical materials research part b: applied biomaterials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.665
H-Index - 108
eISSN - 1552-4981
pISSN - 1552-4973
DOI - 10.1002/jbm.b.31047
Subject(s) - polymer , separation (statistics) , materials science , chemical engineering , nanotechnology , polymer science , composite material , computer science , engineering , machine learning
Under in vivo conditions, there is little control over the amount of water left on the tooth during dentin bonding. As a result, it is possible to leave the dentin surface so wet that the adhesive actually undergoes physical separation into hydrophobic‐ and hydrophilic‐rich phases. Using tapping mode atomic force microscopy/PhaseImaging technique, nanosized phases with worm‐like features were found on the surface of model HEMA/BisGMA dentin adhesives cured in the presence of varying concentrations of water. The phase contrast became evident with the increase of water concentration in the initial adhesive formulation and varied with the ratio of hydrophilic/hydrophobic composition. Oversaturated water droplets of variable sizes may accumulate as micro‐voids within the hydrophilic and hydrophobic polymer phases. The phase domains were also identified following ethanol‐etching in combination with SEM/AFM techniques. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part B: Appl Biomater, 2009