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Project

Safe bioaromatic diols for sustainable resin-based dental materials

At the KU Leuven, methods have been patented which enable the synthesis of safe, renewable and rigid aromatic diols from biomass that could replace bisphenol A (BPA). BPA is produced on a million ton scale and is the main component in common plastics like polycarbonates and epoxy resins. Still, BPA acts as an endocrine disruptor raising serious environmental/health concerns especially upon exposure to the body. For example, in dental composites BPA is used as an essential component to give rigidity to the final product. BPA-based composites are nowadays routinely used as dental restorative material for carious or traumatized teeth to replace amalgams. Unfortunately, incomplete polymerization results in leaching of unpolymerized components, including BPA, into the human body. This multidisciplinary C3 project aims to valorize a portfolio of bioaromatic diols as benign alternatives for BPA in resin formulations. Successful products will be upscaled to gram scale and applied into sustainable dental composites while benchmarking against toxicological, physico-chemical, thermal, and mechanical properties of BPA-based composites.
Date:1 Oct 2018 →  30 Sep 2020
Keywords:bisphenol A replacements, dental composites, biocompatibility, biomaterials, material properties
Disciplines:Analytical chemistry, Macromolecular and materials chemistry