Influence of hot isostatic pressing on ZrO2-CaO dental ceramics properties

Different hot isostatic pressing conditions were used to obtain zirconia ceramics, in order to assess the influence of HIP on phase transformation, compressive strength, Young's modulus and density. First, CaO stabilized zirconia powder was synthesized through sol-gel method, using zirconium propoxide, calcium isopropoxide and 2-metoxiethanol as precursors, then HIP treatment was applied to obtain final dense ceramics. Ceramics were morphologically and structurally characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Density measurements, compressive strength and Young's modulus tests were also performed in order to evaluate the effect of HIP treatment. The zirconia powders heat treated at 500 °C for 2 h showed a pure cubic phase with average particle dimension about 70 nm. The samples that were hot isostatic pressed presented a mixture of monoclinic-tetragonal or monoclinic-cubic phases, while for pre-sintered samples, cubic zirconia was the single crystalline form. Final dense ceramics were obtained after HIP treatment, with relative density values higher than 94%. ZrO2-CaO ceramics presented high compressive strength, with values in the range of 500-708.9 MPa and elastic behavior with Young's modulus between 1739 MPa and 4372 MPa. Finally zirconia ceramics were tested for biocompatibility allowing the normal development of MG63 cells in vitro.

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