Progress in Dental Adhesive Materials

There have been significant advances in adhesive dentistry in recent decades, with efforts being made to improve resin-based dental adhesive materials' mechanical and bonding properties. Various attempts have been made to achieve versatility, introducing functional monomers and silanes into the materials' composition to enable the chemical reaction with tooth structure and restorative materials and a multimode use. Various chemical constituents and other methods are continuously being developed and introduced into dental adhesive materials to fulfil these arduous tasks. This critical review discusses the concepts behind novel monomers, bioactive molecules, and alternative techniques recently implemented in adhesive dentistry. The current trend is to blend bioactive molecules into adhesive materials to enhance the mechanical properties and prevent endogenous enzymatic degradation of the dental substrate, thus ensuring the longevity of resin–dentin bonds. Moreover, alternative etching materials and techniques have been developed to address the drawbacks of phosphoric acid dentin etching. The study witnessed a dynamic era in adhesive dentistry, with advancements aiming to bring us closer to simple and reliable bonding. However, simplification and novelty should not be achieved at the expense of material properties.