Development and characterization of chemical and mechanical properties of Li2O - SiO2 glass-ceramics

• Grant number: 14/14109-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: September 01, 2014
• End date: August 31, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Materials and Metallurgical Engineering - Nonmetallic Materials
• Principal Investigator: Edgar Dutra Zanotto
• Grantee: Carolina Ierck Pereira
• Host Institution: Centro de Ciências Exatas e de Tecnologia (CCET). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 13/07793-6 - CEPIV - Center for Teaching, Research and Innovation in Glass, AP.CEPID

Abstract

The main purpose of this project is to obtain glass-ceramics with following set of properties: high crystallized fraction (above 60% in volume), high fracture toughness (KIC > 2MPa.m1/2), low chemical solubility (below 100 ug/cm2) in aqueous acetic acid (4%), good machinability, hardness ~ 5-6 GPa and translucency close to the natural tooth; that can be used as dental prostheses. The system to be studied will be Li2O - SiO2 with intent to obtain the lithium metasilicate (Li2SiO3) crystal phase. To the best of our knowledge, there is no commercial highly-crystallized glass-ceramics containing lithium metasilicate, which justifies our interest in the assessment and determination of its main properties for the dental area. Moreover, the growing demand for esthetic restorations by patients makes the study of glass-ceramic systems for this application important, since they can reproduce very well the optical properties of enamel and dentin, as fluorescence, opalescence and translucency, as well to present other interesting properties.