Purpose: To evaluate the surface roughness of glazed and polished monolithic ceramic materials and to use this as a baseline for comparison after adjustment and polishing with both the recommended kit for the specific materials as well as interchanged polishing kits.
Material and methods: Flat ceramic specimens (n = 150) were fabricated from IPS ZirCAD Prime, IPS E.max, and Vitabloc Mark II. The specimens were adjusted and polished using either the proprietary polishing kit for the material or interchanged kits. The surface roughness was objectively assessed using Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) and profilometer. Subjective assessment of surface finish was performed using a scanning electron microscope (SEM). Gravimetric weight loss of each sample was measured before and after polishing using a digital microscale. The mean surface roughness and standard deviation was calculated for each ceramic- polisher pair. A factorial ANOVA was used to compare the mean surface roughness values in nanometers between multiple groups (α = 0.05). The subjective results from the SEM were reported as descriptive statistics RESULTS: The zirconia polishing system produced surfaces with the lowest surface roughness regardless of the ceramic material. The polisher-ceramic combination was found to have a statistically significant effect on both Ra and RMS values when the AFM was used (p = 0.039 and 0.010, respectively).
Conclusion: The zirconia polishing system resulted in the lowest surface roughness values regardless of ceramic materials tested. The zirconia polishing system also did not result in significant gravimetric weight loss regardless of the ceramic material used.
Keywords: Ceramics; polishing; surface roughness; zirconia.
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