This study evaluated the effect of blue light emitting diode (LED) and quartz tungsten halogen (QTH) on the degree of conversion (DC) of an etch-and-rinse Single Bond adhesive system (SB) and a mixture composed of primer solution and resin bond from Clearfil SE Bond self-etching adhesive system (CB) using Fourier transform infrared analysis (FTIR). Adhesives were applied to potassium bromide pellet surfaces and FTIR analyses were performed before and after photo-activation for 10 s with either LED (Freelight 1 - 400 mw/cm²) or QTH (XL 3000 - 630 mw/cm²) light-curing units (n=8). Additional FTIR spectra were obtained from photo-activated samples stored in distilled water for 1 week. The DC was calculated by comparing the spectra obtained from adhesive resins before and after photo-activation. The results were analyzed by two-way split-plot ANOVA and Tukey's test (p<0.05). Both adhesive systems exhibited low DC (%) immediately after photo-activation (SB/QTH: 18.7 ± 3.9; SB/LED: 13.5 ± 3.3; CF/QTH: 13.6 ± 1.9; CF/LED: 6.1 ± 1.0). The DC of samples light-cured with LED was lower than DC of those light-cured with QTH, immediately after light curing and after 1 week (SB/QTH: 51.3 ± 6.6; SB/LED: 50.3 ± 4.8; CF/QTH: 56.5 ± 2.9; CF/LED: 49.2 ± 4.9). The LED curing unit used to photo-activate the adhesive resins promoted lower DC than the QTH curing unit both immediately after light curing and 1 week after storage in water.
LED; halogen lamp; degree of conversion; adhesive system
