Mechanism of light polymerization of composites

BACKGROUND: The article presents a review of the chemical aspects of the reaction of light polymerization of composites in dental practice. This reaction refers to free radical polymerization reactions, with photons as activators. In dentistry, composites are classified as chemically cured, light cured, doubly cured, and thermally cured. This depends on the origin of the activation energy of free radical polymerization of methacrylates. Chemically, dental composites are usually a mixture of four main components: an organic polymer matrix, an inorganic filler, an appret compound, a binder matrix and filler, and an initiator–accelerator system. The radical polymerization process includes four main stages. The first stage is activation; in the case of light cured dental composites, it is photoactivation. In this case, a photoinitiator molecule is excited, for example, camphorquinone, which is widely used in the production of dental composite materials. If a free radical is formed, the polymerization process is similar for all composite materials based on a methacrylate organic matrix. The only difference is exactly how free radicals are formed and the rate of their formation. Under the influence of light quanta, the carbon atom of the ketone group of camphorquinone passes into an excited state, which allows the excited photoinitiator molecule to interact with two methacrylate molecules by a double bond. The double bond gives one electron to the excited camphorquinone molecule, and the second electron acts as a free radical agent; in other words, a macroradical is formed–a monomer molecule that can attach other monomer molecules to itself.