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The development of thiol-ene/thiol-epoxy hybrid networks offers the advantage of tailorable polymerization kinetics while producing a highly crosslinked, high T g polymer that has significantly reduced shrinkage stress. Stoichiometric mixtures of pentaerythritol tetra(3-mercaptopropionate) (PETMP)/triallyl-1,3,5-triazine-2,4,6-trione (TATATO) (thiol-ene, mixture 1) and PETMP/ bisphenol a diglycidyl ether (BADGE) (thiol-epoxy, mixture 2) were prepared and hybrid mixtures of 75/25, 50/50, 25/75, and 10/90 w/w of mixtures 1 and 2 were polymerized using a combination of both radical and anionic initiation. The light exposure timing and the relative initiation conditions of the two types were used to control the order and relative rates of the radical and anionic polymerizations. The 50/50 w/w thiol-ene/thiol-epoxy hybrid material exhibited a final stress of only 0.2 MPa, which is 90 % lower than the stress developed in a control dimethacrylate resin. Kinetic analysis indicates composition affects network development in thiol-ene/thiol-epoxy hybrid networks and produces materials with robust mechanical properties.

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The ability to prepare high Tg low shrinkage thiol–ene materials is attractive for applications such as coatings and dental restoratives. However, thiol and nonacrylated vinyl materials typically consist of a flexible backbone, limiting the utility of these polymers. Hence, it is of importance to synthesize and investigate thiol and vinyl materials of varying backbone chemistry and stiffness. Here, we investigate the effect of backbone chemistry and functionality of norbornene resins on polymerization kinetics and glass transition temperature (Tg) for several thiol–norbornene materials. Results indicate that Tgs as high as 94 °C are achievable in thiol–norbornene resins of appropriately controlled chemistry. Furthermore, both the backbone chemistry and the norbornene moiety are important factors in the development of high Tg materials. In particular, as much as a 70 °C increase in Tg was observed in a norbornene–thiol specimen when compared with a sample prepared using allyl ether monomer of analogous backbone chemistry. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 45: 5686–5696, 2007

Objectives-The objective of this work was to evaluate thiol-norbornene and thiol-enemethacrylate systems as the resin phase of dental restorative materials and demonstrate their superior performance as compared to dimethacrylate materials.Methods-Polymerization kinetics and overall functional group conversions were determined by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Flexural strength and modulus were determined with a 3-point flexural test. Polymerization-induced shrinkage stress was measured with a tensometer.Results-Thiol-ene polymer systems were demonstrated to exhibit advantageous properties for dental restorative materials in regards to rapid curing kinetics, high conversion, and low shrinkage and stress. However, both the thiol-norbornene and thiol-allyl ether systems studied here exhibit significant reductions in flexural strength and modulus relative to BisGMA/TEGDMA. By utilizing the thiol-ene component as the reactive diluent in dimethacrylate systems, high flexural modulus and strength are achieved while dramatically reducing the polymerization shrinkage stress. The methacrylate-thiol-allyl ether and methacrylate-thiol-norbornene systems both exhibited equivalent flexural modulus (2.1 ± 0.1 GPa) and slightly reduced flexural strength (95 ± 1 and 101 ± 3 MPa, respectively) relative to BisGMA/TEGDMA (flexural modulus; 2.2 + 0.1 GPa and flexural strength; 112 ± 3 MPa). Both the methacrylate-thiol-allyl ether and methacrylate-thiol-norbornene systems exhibited dramatic reductions in shrinkage stress (1.1 ± 0.1 and 1.1 ± 0.2 MPa, respectively) relative to BisGMA/TEGDMA (2.6 ± 0.2 MPa).Significance-The improved polymerization kinetics and overall functional group conversion, coupled with reductions in shrinkage stress while maintaining equivalent flexural modulus, result in a superior overall dental restorative material as compared to traditional bulk dimethacrylate resins.