Development of Bio-inspired Dental Adhesive

Description

The choices of dental materials are limited due to the strict requirement on appearance and biocompatibility. This leads to high failure rate of dental materials and, therefore, stimulates the demand to develop durable dental materials. In Hong Kong, the demand is even higher due to the aging population.The objective of this project is to develop a new dental adhesive that is inspired by the functionally graded dentin-enamel-junction (DEJ) layer in natural teeth. Learning from nature, the materials properties of the new dental adhesive change gradually from those of the synthetic enamel to those of the synthetic dentin. The new product is expected to enhance the strength and durability of the dental multilayer structures by minimizing materials mismatch between different layers.The project proposes to achieve following technical outcomes. First, a new dental adhesive with gradually changing materials properties will be fabricated with epoxy and nano-zirconia particles. Second, state-of-the-art microscopy and mechanical experiments will be conducted to evaluate the manufacturing quality, mechanical strength and durability of the dental multilayers bonded with the new dental adhesive. Finally, a computational model will be developed to optimize the microstructure and formula of the new adhesive.