Graphene dental fillings make it more strength and can stay forever

Graphene dental fillings make it more strength and can stay forever

Graphene this wonder material entered to new field and used to make dental fillings that don’t corrode and last forever, scientists have proposed.
According to an international team of researchers, fillings made of graphene oxide would be much more durable than those based on metals or ceramic materials.

While metallic fillings made of copper, mercury, silver or tin tend to corrode, ceramic composite fillings are not very strong. Graphene offers both: exceptional strength up to 200 times higher than steel and resistance against corrosion.

Graphene has a wide variety of exquisite properties could thus be an excellent material for fixing teeth. According to the researchers, our teeth are under extreme strain. During an average meal, a person chews up to 800 times. Over the period of a year, this number rises to a million. No surprise then that fillings tend to fall out or require frequent repairs.

Graphene offers both exceptional strength and resistance against corrosion, which could greatly improve current fillings that tend to corrode or break. The researchers attempted to add graphene into dental materials, in order to increase their resistance to corrosion as well as to improve their mechanical properties.

Graphene dental fillings need to be determined some features before wide scale use

A team of researchers from four institutions located in Romania and St. Kitts have worked together to determine whether graphene could be used to create more durable dental materials. They worked to test how toxic different forms of the material were to teeth, with promising results.
First, there was a need to determine how toxic the material is, as there is contradictory information regarding the cytotoxicity of graphene. The researchers tested three types of graphene oxides. While nitrogen-doped graphene oxide and thermally reduced graphene oxide proved to be highly toxic to human cells, graphene oxide fared much better. The results, then, showed that graphene could be appropriate for use in dental materials.

The researchers tested three types of graphene oxides. While nitrogen-doped graphene oxide and thermally reduced graphene oxide proved to be highly toxic to human cells, graphene oxide fared much better.

“The results were very interesting and proved that graphene is appropriate for use in dental materials,” said Gabriela Adriana Filip, Associate Professor at Iuliu Hatieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy Cluj-Napoca in Romania who participated in the research. “We believe that this research will bring new knowledge about the cytotoxic properties of graphene-based materials and their potential applications in dental materials.”