The effects of artificial aging on high translucent zirconia

Figures & data

Table 1. The chemical composition of the tested materials.

Product name	Chemical composition^a
Prettau Anterior	<12% Y2O3, <1% Al2O3, max 0.02% SiO2, max 0.02% Fe2O3
DD CubeX^2	<10% Y2O3, <0.1% Al2O3, <1.0 other oxides

^aAccording to manufacturer information.

Table 2. Sintering parameters for DD cubeX² and Prettau Anterior.

	Temp. 1 (°C)	Temp. 2 (°C)	Heating rate (°C/min)	Dwell time (min)	Time (min)
DD cubeX^2
Heating	20	900	8		110
Dwell	900	900		30	30
Heating	900	1450	3		165
Dwell	1450	1450		120	120
Cooling	1450	200	10		125
Prettau Anterior
Heating	20	1500	8		180
Dwelling				120
Cooling	1500	50	8		180

Figure 1. A flowchart explaining the workflow of the experiments.

Figure 2. (a) Boxplot and whiskers displaying surface roughness presented in Ra value in μm for Prettau Anterior and DD cubeX², unaged (0 h), aged 5 h (5 h), aged 10 h (10 h). (b) Boxplot and whiskers displaying biaxial flexural strength in MPa as unaged (0 h), aged 10 h (10 h).

Figure 3. Level of transparency of DD cubeX² (a) and Prettau Anterior (b) before aging (ref), after 5 h of aging (5 h) and after 10 h of aging (10 h) are presented. Two discs (disc 1 and disc 2) from each manufacturer are tested. (c) Level of transparency of DD cubeX² aged for 10 h, Prettau Anterior aged for 10 h and Empress are presented (one sample each).

Figure 4. Diffractograms for the tested zirconia. These patterns revealed that both DD cubeX² and Prettau Anterior have the characteristic pattern of yttria-stabilized tetragonal/cubic zirconia and the peaks are denoted with C. The contribution of TiO is visible at a small peak at 27°, signs of monoclinic ZrO² are seen as small peaks at 28° for aged DD cubeX², and this area is denoted with R.