Incorporation of Hydroxyapatite-Silica Nano-Powder for Enhancement of Glass Ionomer Cement (GIC)

Glass Ionomer Cement (GIC) is one of the most popular materials among the available dental restorative materials. They have desirable properties like direct adhesion to the tooth structure, thermal compatibility [1] and good biocompatibility [2,3]. Despite these advantages, brittleness, low tensile and flexural strengths have limited their use only to certain low stress-bearing sites. As such, the incorporation of micron-range sized particles, such as alumina, zirconia or glass fibers into CGICs are some of the many efforts made to improve the mechanical strength of CGIC [4-6]. Nevertheless, it did not significantly improve its mechanical strength.