The goals of Core-2 are to improve and scale-up the synthesis of liquid crystal monomers, set-up the conditions for high reproducibility of the ratio of products in LC-monomer mixtures, define the standards for quality control, and formulate resin composites with substantially lower polymerization shrinkage. Experimental resins and composites will be distributed to other projects of this program project for further studies required to develop and demonstrate a new dental restorative material with superior properties. To achieve these goals, three specific aims are proposed: (1) Improvement of synthetic and purification methodology to optimize yields and scale up to 100-200g batches of our present LC monomers (each batch will be sufficient to make 500g-1kg of filled composite).
This aim i ncludes definition of the conditions for batch-to-batch reproducibility of the ratio of two LC monomers in the reaction mixture and defining the standards for quality control. (2) Synthesize sufficient quantities of experimental liquid crystal monomers that result of from project-1, for use in formulation and complete characterization as restorative materials. (3) Formulate resin composites from experimental LC monomers synthesized in aim-1 and aim-2, with conventional fillers and/or experimental nano-fillers (from project 2), to obtain very low cure-shrinkage resins with an optimized balance among desirable properties. Thus, Core-2 will supply the experimental resins and composites needed for further research, to the other component projects. In so doing, we will develop the large batch-size processes that are needed as the basis for scale-up and transition to industrial processes, thereby enhancing the likelihood that the technology can be transferred to the dental industry and made a available to the dental profession.
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