Unsaturated tertiary arylamines as low toxicity activators in the formulation of biomedical acrylic resins.

Two unsaturated tertiary aromatic amines, namely acryloyl- (ArcNP) and methacryloyl-N-phenyl piperazine are proposed as potential substitutes of dimetyl-p toluidine (DMPT), in the ''coldt curing of biomedical acrylic resins. The paper give an overview of the results so far obtained with the new compounds, with particular reference to some unpublished data on their efficacy as activators in the MMA/PMMA cold curing, and on their leachability from MMA cured samples. AcrNP and MNP showed good efficacy as, accelerators, with similar gel times but lightly prolonged setting times in comparison with DMPT; both compounds (AcrNP in particular), produced PMMA-based cements with similar mechanical properties, but less accelerated ageing than DMPT; differently from MNP, AcrNP showed the ability to copolymerize with MMA, and to be hardly leachable from cured PMMA samples. Above all, the last property makes AcrNP preferable to MNP as red-ox activator, and good potential substitute of DMPT