Titanium. A review of investments for high temperature casting.

Abstract

Conventional silica (SiO2) based dental casting investments are used for the casting of pure titanium using casting machines specifically developed for this metal. Highly reactive molten titanium reduces SiO2 and titanium is in turn oxidised. For this reason possible alternatives to SiO2 have been studied in the past decade and MgO and Al2O3 are the most common in current commercial investments released for titanium casting. The surface of titanium castings presents a layered structure and its evaluation in relation to clinical performance requires further study. It is also urgently required to know setting and thermal behaviour of the newly developed investments for successful compensation of metal shrinkage.