DENTBIOCOMP · Novel bioactive glass-ceramic composites for dental restorations

There is a need for development new bioactive dental glass-ceramics with controlled surface reactivity and mechanical properties as well as aesthetic appearance, which would be capable to establish periodontal tissue attachment similar to the one observed in healthy teeth. To achieve this objective, our work will focus on two important tasks: a) the development and optimisation of processing techniques based on sol-gel and powder technology for the processing of novel bioactive silicate glass-ceramic composites and b) the complete structural, chemical, mechanical and biological characterization of the products. The innovative aspect will be the use of sol-gel technique towards achieving two processes which will lead to synthesis of novel bioactive inorganic materials; the first stage of experiments aims at the development of an intimate and homogeneous mixture of the bioactive glass phase and the dental ceramic inclusions. During the second stage, glass-ceramics in appropriate systems for dental applications will be synthesized fully by a new sol-gel method. To achieve this, the precursor solutions of the different crystalline phases will be mixed with the respective precursors of the bioactive glasses. The composite solutions, following the next stages of the standard sol-gel method, will lead to the fabrication of novel composites, appropriate for dental restorations. The structural, chemical, surface and biological properties of the new glass-ceramics prepared under the above processing conditions will be studied by many different methods like; XRD, DTA, TEM, SEM-EDS, FTIR, BET, ICP, AFM, while the mechanical properties will be investigated by standard testing facilities. Using extensive experience of the host laboratory in the microstructure-property correlation of glass-crystalline composites, we will be able to design the microstructure and composition of the glass-ceramics to optimise their properties for the required performance in vitro.