The Mechanism of Formation of Glass-Ionomer Cement: A Theoretical Study

A resin-modified glass-ionomer cement (RMGIC) was studied from a computational point of view. We suggest terpolymer formation by reaction of fixation through a combination of acrylic acid (AA), itaconic acid (IA) and an aminoacid derivative (AAD) in different positions. We found that AAD-AA-IA is thermodynamically more stable, but AA-IA-AAD is the combination which can react with glycidyl methacrylate (GM) to form a grafted polymer with two pendant methacrylate groups which can be used later in the process of light-curing. A RMGIC contains a glass powder of calcium-fluoroaluminosilicate acting as the source of cross linking, and for this reason, we have optimized two intramolecular Al tricarboxylate complexes (salt-bridges) formed from the most stable grafted polymers. A possible reaction mechanism for the addition of (GM) to copolymer is proposed.