Measurement of ion elution from dental ceramics

Dental ceramics are generally considered to be chemically inert materials. However, characteristics of one dental ceramic are not necessarily present in another dental ceramic material. The aim of this study was to test the elution of sodium, potassium, magnesium, silicon and aluminium ions from feldspathic, alumina and glass–ceramics after 16 h of immersion in the acetic acid solution, according to ISO Standard 6872 method and to assess their potential toxicity. Elution was determined using the atomic absorption spectrophotometer (AAS) and UV–vis spectrophotometer. The highest leaching of the ions was shown for the feldspathic ceramic specimens and the lowest for the glass ceramic specimens. The release of the ions from the analyzed specimens did not correspond to their composition declared by the manufacturers. It can be concluded that the measured release of ions is not significant and correlates well with the data from the literature linked with glass corrosion, that is, silicate-based dental ceramics.