Effects of different plasma treatments on bonding properties of zirconia

Abstract

This in vitro study was to evaluate the effect of different non-thermal atmospheric pressure plasma (NTP) on shear bond strength (SBS) between yttria-stabilized tetragonal zirconia polycrystal (Y-TZP) and self-adhesive resin cement. In this study, The Y-TZP specimens were divided into 4 groups according to the surface treatment methods as follows: Control (no surface treatment), Sb (Sandblasting), AP(argon NTP), and CP(20 % oxygen and 80 % argon combination NTP). Y-TZP specimens were randomly selected from each group to observe and test the following indexes: scanning electron microscope to observe the surface morphology; atomic force microscope to detect the surface roughness; contact angle detector to detect the surface contact angle; energy spectrometer to analyze the surface elements. Then, resin cement (Rely X–U200) was bonded to human isolated teeth with Y-TZP specimens to measure SBS. The results showed that for the SE test, the NTP group was significantly higher than the control group (p 0.05). This study shows that non-thermal atmospheric pressure plasma can improve the shear bond strength of Y-TZP by increasing the surface energy. The addition of oxygen ratio to argon is more favorable to increase the shear bond strength and is worth further investigation.

Keywords

• Yttria-stabilized tetragonal zirconia polycrystal (Y-TZP)
• Non-thermal atmospheric pressure plasma(NTP)
• Surface treatment
• Contact angle
• Shear bond strength(SBS)