Nonthermal Atmospheric Plasma Promotes Bonding Between Adhesive Monomers and Zirconia.

Objective: To investigate whether nonthermal atmospheric plasma (NTAP) can promote bonding between commonly used adhesive monomers and zirconia.

Materials and methods: The zirconia surface and monomers (HEMA, BisGMA, TEGDMA, and MDP) were treated with different NTAP approaches (10 w, 30 s), and the surface characteristics and chemical structures between the zirconia surface and monomers were verified by the contact angle, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), attenuated total reflectance Fourier transform infrared (ATR/FT-IR) spectroscopy, and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Scotchbond Universal adhesive with two different resin cements, RelyX Ultimate and RelyX Unicem 2, was applied, followed by NTAP-aided clinical procedures, and then microtensile bond strength test (μTBS) and failure mode evaluation were tested for preliminary mechanical properties assessment. One-way ANOVA was employed for the statistical analysis.

Results: The contact angle analysis, SEM, and ATR-FTIR confirmed that NTAP can promote the polymerization of BisGMA, TEGDMA, and MDP on the zirconia surface, while XPS confirmed that NTAP can induce a chemical reaction between MDP and zirconia.

Conclusions: Nonthermal atmospheric plasma can increase the affinity between selected monomers and zirconia and promote the chemical bonding strength between phosphate monomers and zirconia; besides, it can enhance the bonding strength of two different adhesive systems.

Clinical significance: The mechanism of how NTAP improved common adhesive monomers interacting with zirconia surfaces was revealed in this study. NTAP, as a relatively high energy-boosting method, could not only improve the surface affinity of zirconia and chemical bonding in-between monomers and zirconia but also enhance the polymerization of different monomers onto zirconia, resulting in improved bonding properties. Thus, further exploration of versatile bonding materials and/or onto different dental substrates could take this into account.