Nanostructured zirconia teeth

SUAREZ GUSTAVO; SOFIA GOMEZ; NICOLAS M. RENDTORFF; LEANDRO M. CAVALLARO; ESTEBAN F. AGLIETTI

Conferencia; 14th International Conference. European Ceramic Society; 2015

Teeth are white, hard and tough as well as the first part in the digestive system. The malfunction of these important parts can complicate the daily life of anyone. Because of these, dental materials have been under research for many years but from some year to now, dental materials based in zirconia have evolved substantial generating harder and tougher materials [1, 2]. Dental implants as well as dental teeth made of zirconia are nowadays prepared by 3D scanning and shaping by CAD/CAM technology being very precise the form and particular characteristics, also it can be designed as client request. The evolution need to be in the basic material.The commercialized zirconia blanks are, as many commercial products, not certainly know how the processing route for obtaining it is. In materials processing, the processing route can define the final properties. An improvement in ceramic materials can be produced by improvements in the processing route [3, 4].In this work, a study and characterization of the commercial zirconia blanks was made. Two powders, coarse and nanosized were study and uniaxial pressed and colloidal processing were analyzed. Three different experimental blanks were prepared and compared with commercial ones.XRD analysis, Mercury porosimetry, textural analysis (density and porosity), Vickers Hardness and microstructural analysis were evaluated. Sintering conditions also can be modified in order to produce lower grain growth. Two step sintering and sintering conditions were also evaluated. Finally, the actual experimental behavior of a zirconia blank for preparing a zirconia tooth were tested by a dental mechanist with 3D CAD/CAM equipment. A final nanostructured dental material was possible to prepare at lower temperature than commercial procedure. The results showed that commercial materials can be improved by changing the processing route and the sintering conditions allow producing in the future harder and tougher materials with a lower temperature making possible also to reduce the energy consumption.The real operational behavior tested by an expert in these materials proved to be the same as commercial blanks permitting to extrapolate this research to future possible commercial applications and the adaptation to patience was excellent.