Effect of Different Surface Modifications of Acrylic Teeth and Thermocycling on Shear Bond Strength to Polycarbonate Denture Base Material.

During prosthodontic clinical practice, the most commonly reported type of failure is the debonding of teeth to the denture base. Incompatible surface conditions at the tooth/denture base interface result in a lack of bonding. This study aimed to study the influence of different surface modifications of acrylic teeth and thermocycling on shear bond strength to polycarbonate denture base material. Eighty cylinder-shaped samples were fabricated. The tested samples were divided into 4 groups (n = 20). Group A represents the control group, group B represents the mechanical modification of the tooth, while group C and group D represent the chemical treatment of the tooth with ethyl acetate and bonding agent, respectively. Each group was further subdivided into 2 categories depending on the thermocycling procedure (N = 10). All samples were tested for shear bond strength tests. A computer-controlled universal testing machine performed the shear bond test at a 0.5 mm/min crosshead speed. Three-way ANOVA (P=0.05) was used for the statistical analysis of the data. Results show that shear bond strength was significantly affected by the surface treatment, whether it is mechanical or chemical (P ≤ 0.01) (B > D > C) compared with a control group (A). However, thermocycling has a nonsignificant decrease in the bond strength values in all experimental groups (P > 0.05) (B > D > C > A). The mechanical treatment by creating retentive holes (B) provides better results than the chemical surface treatment with a bonding agent and ethyl acetate (D and C, respectively). This study concluded that various surface conditioning methods affect the bonding strength of acrylic teeth and polycarbonate denture base material with no effect of thermocycling.

Separation of four isomeric tropane alkaloids from Schizanthus grahamii by non-aqueous capillary electrophoresis.

The potential of non-aqueous capillary electrophoresis was investigated for the separation of four isomeric tropane alkaloids, namely 3alpha-senecioyloxy-7beta-hydroxytropane, 3alpha-hydroxy-7beta-senecioyloxytropane, 3alpha-hydroxy-7beta-angeloyloxytropane and 3alpha-hydroxy-7beta-tigloyloxytropane extracted from Schizanthus grahamii. The composition of the organic solvent and the nature of the electrolyte were of considerable importance with respect to selectivity. Different organic solvents (i.e. methanol, ethanol, acetonitrile, tetrahydrofuran) and mixtures thereof were investigated. Moreover, different electrolytes such as formate, acetate and trifluoroacetate were tested. After optimisation, an electrolyte consisting of 1 M trifluoroacetic acid and 25 mM ammonium trifluoroacetate in methanol:ethanol (40:60, v:v) was selected. It provided an efficient separation of the four positional isomers as well as a good repeatability of migration time (RSD < 0.2%). The method was successfully used with electrospray MS to confirm the molecular mass of the tropane alkaloids.

Dramatic improvement of the enantiomeric excess in the asymmetric conjugate addition reaction using new experimental conditions.

The asymmetric conjugate addition of dialkylzincs is usually performed with Cu(OTf)(2) in toluene. We show that by using a copper carboxylate in Et(2)O, THF, or EtOAc, we strongly improve the enantioselectivity with a given ligand. Ee values up to 99.1% could be reached with new ligands based on the induced atropisomerism of a simple biphenol unit. In addition, we show that the Lewis acid effect of Cu(OTf)(2) is not a significant.