COMPARATIVE STUDY CONCERNING THE PROFILE OF THE FINISHED SURFACES OF SOME GLASS-IONOMER CEMENTS USED IN DENTAL PRACTICE

Introduction. Glass-ionomer cements were described as being a hybrid between silicate cements and polycarboxylic ones. The evolution of glass-ionomer cements in the past decades has brought modifications both to the powder and the polycarboxylic acid. In this period, the clinical experience has shown the advantages of using glass-ionomer cements. Paper goal. The investigations carried out on the surface quality aimed at showing the variations of rugosity corresponding to the samples made from different classes of glass-ionomer cements used as direct coronary restorative materials whose final finishing by polishing was performed mechanically. Material and method. Experimental researches related to surface quality were carried out on 3 glass-ionomer cements: Kavitan Plus - SPOFA DENTAL , Ketac Molar EasyMix - 3M ESPE and Fuji II LC – GC AMERICA. Specimens were made in the Dental material lab from the Faculty of Dental Medicine - U.M.F. “Gr. T. Popa” Iaşi. The surfaces finished by polishing were subjected to the imagistic test and experimental measurements to nanometric scale by using the atomic force microscopy system Nanosurf easyScan 2 AFM existing in the lab for Surface Engineering of the Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering from “Gheorghe Asachi” Techncial University of Iaşi. Results. Experimental researches run to determine the nanometric profile of each surface showed the following aspects: 3D image of the relief topography obtained after finishing by polishing; nanometric profile of the midline corresponding to the investigated area; 2D image of the surface treated obtained by deflection.Conclusions. After gum polishing, the nanometric profile having the lowest dimension (379.3 nm) was obtained for Ketac Molar EasyMix material followed by Fuji II LC commercial product whereas Kavitan Plus material registered the highest value (513.3 nm).After having analysed the average values of total size for the nanometric profile for glass-ionomer cement specimens, we notice that Kavitan Plus material registered the highest value (513.3 nm)