Post-Cure Polymerization and Depth-of-Cure Behaviors of Dental Bulk-Fill Resin-Based Composites.

Introduction: Polymerization for modern dental resin-based composites (RBCs) not only occurs immediately upon light exposure but also continues for another 24 hours, well beyond after light is terminated. However, many questions still remain about the role of polymerization kinetics in optimizing the physical properties of a new RBC type-the bulk-fill.

Objective: The aim is to study the post-cure polymerization kinetics of bulk-fill RBCs and to compare their degree of polymeric conversion (DC) and depth-of-cure (DoC) with an incremental-fill, conventional RBC.