Zirconia

Solid Zirconia is a full contoured zirconia restoration with no porcelain overlay. While Zirconia is more brawn than beauty, you’ll be impressed by its esthetics when prescribed instead of metal occlusal PFMs and full-cast metal restorations. Virtually unbreakable, it is an ideal restoration for bruxers and grinders.Designed and milled using CAD/CAM technology, Zirconia crowns and bridges are sintered for 6.5 hours at 1,530°C. The final Zirconia crown or bridge emerges “nearly bulletproof” and is glazed to a smooth surface.

Benefits for Your Patient

• Chip-resistant, as it is made of full zirconia with no porcelain overlay
• Glazed to a smooth surface to reduce plaque accumulation

ISolid Zirconia is indicated for posterior crowns, bridges, inlays and onlays. Zirconia is an ideal solution for bruxers and grinders when PFM metal occlusals or full-cast restorations are not desired. Zirconia is also ideally suited for posterior molar crowns when the patient lacks the preparation space for a PFM or has broken a PFM in the past due to bruxing.

Cementation

• Resin reinforced glass ionomer cement (RelyX Luting Cement, 3M ESPE; GCFuji Plus, GC America)
• Resin cements for short or over-tapered preparations (RelyX Unicem, 3M ESPE; Panavia F2.0, Kuraray)

Zirconia restorations are fabricated from solid zirconia oxide material, which exhibits a strong affinity for phosphate groups. We can take advantage of this fact with phosphate-containing primers such as Monobond Plus (Ivoclar Vivadent) and Z-Prime™ Plus (Bisco), or with cements such as Ceramir® Crown & Bridge (Doxa Dental) to increase our bond strengths to zirconia oxide. Unfortunately, saliva also contains phosphates in the form of phospholipids. When a Zirconia crown or bridge is tried in the patient’s mouth and comes in contact with saliva, the phosphate groups in the saliva bind to the zirconia oxide and cannot be rinsed out with water. Attempting to use phosphoric acid (which is full of phosphate groups) to “clean out” the saliva only makes the problem worse.

The only way to successfully remove these phosphate groups from the interior of a Zirconia restoration is with the use of Ivoclean (Ivoclar Vivadent). This zirconia oxide solution is placed inside the restoration for 20 seconds and then rinsed out. Due to the large concentration of free zirconia oxide in the Ivoclean, it acts as a sponge and binds to the phosphate groups that were previously bonded to the restoration. Once the Ivoclean is rinsed out, you will have a fresh bonding surface for the Monobond Plus, Z-Prime Plus or Ceramir to bond to.