Hardness, friction and wear studies on hydrogen peroxide treated bovine teeth

• Treatment with neutral hydrogen peroxide reduced wear and loss of enamel hardness.
• ACP treatments resulted in an increase in hardness of peroxide treated teeth.
• Wear behaviour of peroxide-treated enamel did not follow Archard’s wear equation.

A possible problem with peroxide based tooth whitening is the loss of tooth hardness and higher susceptibility to enamel surface wear. This study focussed on the effects of acidic and neutral hydrogen peroxide solutions (6 and 30% w/v) on hardness, friction and wear of bovine enamel. The experiments showed that treatments with neutral peroxide reduced wear and the loss of enamel hardness up to 2–3 times. In addition, further investigation on remineralisation with amorphous calcium phosphate showed an increase in hardness after treatment. Friction coefficients of teeth against steel varied between 0.25 and 0.7, and wear coefficients ranged between ≈10−6 and 10−7 mm3/N m. From this study, it is possible to explain the wear behaviour of HP treated enamel with changes in hardness.

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