Impact of effervescent denture cleaning tablets on color and surface characteristics of additively manufactured and hand-cast splint materials.

Abstract

This study is to evaluate the color stability, surface roughness, and hardness of additively manufactured and hand-cast splint materials after a 6-month commercially available denture cleaning tablet immersion simulation. Disc-shaped additively manufactured and hand-cast auto polymerizing acrylic resin specimens were prepared (N = 40 each). All specimens were exposed to coffee solution totally 2days. Thereafter, all specimens were immersed into three different effervescent solutions that simulated 6months of clinical use. The total color change (ΔE*ab), surface roughness (Ra), and Vickers hardness (Vh) were measured at baseline and after immersion protocols. A two-way ANOVA and Bonferroni's post hoc test were used for color change. The dependent t-test and ANOVA were used for roughness and hardness evaluation. Additively manufactured splint materials were more affected by coffee immersion. It was observed that all denture cleaning tablets induced a noticeable alteration in color of the specimens (p < 0.05). Roughness and hardness measurement changes after solution immersions were statistically significant for both splint groups (p < 0.05). On the other hand, distilled water and denture cleaning tablets created similar roughness and hardness measurements at baseline and after immersion. After 6months use of tested cleaning tables, the color stability, surface roughness, and hardness of both groups were affected. The evaluation of the surface properties of splint materials could be recommended to the dentists in periodic controls during splint treatments. The use effervescent denture cleaning tablets altered the surface characteristics of tested splint materials over time with nonsignificant difference between each other. After 6months, awareness should be raised about surface characteristics of splint materials.