ROLE OF AMINE ACTIVATORS ON THE CURING PARAMETERS, PROPERTIES AND TOXICITY OF ACRYLIC BONE CEMENTS

A review about the accelerating effect of tertiary aromatic amines use d as activator in the benzoyl peroxide/amine system for the curing of acrylic resins is presented. The kinetics, mechanism and activation en ergy of the reaction are considered, together with some toxicity, resi duals and leaching data concerned with biomedical applications of this system, e.g. denture resins or acrylic bone cements. Furthermore, som e results relating the effect of the temperature of the surroundings o n the curing parameters of the cements prepared with three amines (N,N -dimethyl-4-toluidine, N,N-dimethylbenzyl alcohol and N,N-dimethylbenz yl methacrylate) are shown. The results indicate that the temperature has a significant effect on the curing parameters, and must be conside red in the evaluation of new activators. The relevance of these result s lies with the importance of thermal trauma generally associated with the implantation of acrylic bone cements. (C) 1998 SCI.