COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF COLOUR STABILITY OF ZIRCONOMER ON IMMERSION IN HOT BEVERAGES - AN IN VITRO STUDY

Abstract

Introduction: Several esthetic restorative materials such as composite resins, glass ionomers, compomers, and
zirconia-reinforced glass ionomer cement (GICs) are being used. Dental restorations are constantly prone to multiple
oral environmental challenges such as variations in temperature and pH. Zirconia-reinforced GIC was introduced with
the purpose to enhance the mechanical properties of conventional GIC as well as overcoming drawbacks of previously
used tooth-colored esthetic restorative materials. The study aims to determine the color stability of zirconomer after
and before immersion in hot beverages.
Materials and methods: Zirconomer was taken for the study. A total of 8 disc-shaped samples were made. Required
quantities of tea, coffee were measured and taken in a beaker. The hydrated specimens were immersed in glass beakers
containing the tea solution, coffee solution, and distilled water separately, 3 samples in both tea and coffee solution,
2 samples in distilled water. The specimen immersed in distilled water was taken as the control for 24 hrs. Then they
were rinsed with distilled water and were checked for color stability (delta E) values using a VITA Easyshade advance
spectrophotometer analyzed statistically using t-test and SPSS software version 23.0.
Results: In the tea solution, the ΔE value of Zirconomer was 6.74 which was higher than the coffee group which was
4.39 and the control group which was 2.55. P-value is 0.667 (>0.05) which is statistically not significant.
Conclusion: It can be concluded that tea produced a higher degree of color change than coffee in the prepared
zirconomer restorative material samples.