Comparative study on the properties of acrylic bone cements prepared with either aliphatic or aromatic functionalized methacrylates

Bone cements prepared with methacrylic acid (MAA) and diethyl amino ethyl methacrylate (DEAEM) were compared with formulations employing 4-methacryloyloxybenzoic acid (MBA) and 4-diethyaminobenzyl methacrylate (DEABM) as comonomer. The influence of these new aromatic monomers on various physicochemical, setting and mechanical properties was assessed. Surface characterization demonstrated that bone cements prepared with any of the functionalized monomers exhibited increasing hydrophilicity with monomer concentration and that the aromatic monomers provided more hydrophilic cements than their aliphatic counterparts for low concentrations of the functional monomer. It was also found that bone cements prepared with high amounts of the acidic aliphatic monomer provided the highest exotherm of reaction and their setting times were shorter than MBA based cements. On the other hand, DEABM containing bone cements exhibited shorter setting times than DEAEM formulations and slightly higher peak temperatures. In general, it was found that the glass transition temperature increased with the presence of acidic comonomer and decreased when alkaline comonomers were present, especially aliphatic ones.When aromatic methacrylates were used at 0.05 molar fraction, the highest tensile and compressive strength were achieved i.e. 46 and 118 MPa for MBA and 51 and 108 MPa for DEABM formulations. A further increase in the aromatic monomer concentration led to cements of low mechanical properties due to solubility problems as revealed by SEM.