“The Effect of Recycling and Surface Treatment on Bonding to Heat Pressed Lithium Disilicate Ceramics”

Abstract

Glass–ceramics are attractive materials which are shaped from the melt of a glass and converted (crystallised) by suitable heat treatment process into a ceramic. Their physical, chemical and mechanical properties are adjustable by changing the composition and heat treatment process.

Among glass–ceramics, lithium disilicate (LS2, Li2Si2O5) is of particular importance for dental restorative applications and have been acquiring wide applications because these glass–ceramics have a much higher flexural strength and fracture toughness than other types of glass– ceramics. (1) Lithium disilicate glass-ceramics were the first glass-ceramic materials to be discovered by Dr. Donald Stookey in the 1950s.

Since that time, the precipitation of Li2Si2O5 crystals from many different base glass systems as well as applying a number of different mechanisms and techniques for nucleation and crystallization were investigated. (2)