Dental Implant Materials

It was not until materials became available that promoted an osseointegrated or biointegrated interface and surgical techniques were developed to reliably obtain such interfaces that endosseous implants became a viable treatment option for tooth replacement (Craig, Powers and Wataha, 2004, Ch.15). Commercially-pure titanium is actually an alloy, containing 99 wt percent titanium and small amounts (0.18 wt percent to 0.40 wt percent) of oxygen with trace amounts (less than 0.25 percent) of iron, carbon, nitrogen, and hydrogen. The amount of oxygen determines the grade of the alloy. Increasing amounts of oxygen increase the strength but decrease the ductility of the alloys. The concentrations of the other trace elements are critical to the strength, phase structure, and corrosion resistance of titanium alloys. All the alloys are equally able to osseointegrate with bone.

Titanium alloy contains roughly six wt percent of aluminum and four wt percent of vanadium, which doubles its tensile strength relative to commercially-pure titanium, but reduces its ductility (craig, Powers and Wataha, 2004, 316). However, it promotes good osseointegration. A complex mixture of adherent oxides of titanium and oxygen are used to coat either titanium or titanium alloy, and the presence of these oxides appears to be necessary for the osseointegration process to occur. The alloys reform these oxides rapidly after any damage to the surface of the alloy (in 1 msec) because the titanium i

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ntalum, titanium, zirconium-aluminum-316 L-molybdenum. A major parameter of implant technology is the ability of cells to spread and attach to titanium-based alloy surfaces, and Ponsonnet et al (2003, 351-360) looked at the substratum surface hydrophobicity, surface free energy, interfacial free energy, and surface roughness to determine which of these parameters was predominant in human fibroblast spreading. They used the sessile drop and the captive bubble two-probe methods to determine contact angle measurements of various engineered titanium surfaces, e.g. commercially pure titanium (cp-Ti), Ti-6Al-4V, and titanium nickel (NiTi). Surface free energy (SFE) calculations were carried out using the contact angles on smooth surface examples of the same alloys to eliminate the surface roughness effect. The Van Oss approach was used to determine the SFE of the sessile drops, and the Owens-Wendt method was used to determine the SFE of the rough surfaces. A relationship was found between the cell spreading and the polar component of the SFE. Interfacial free energy values were low for all the surfaces examined, which indicates good biocompatibility for these alloys. A strong correlation has been reported in a previous study

Category: Medical - D