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| Cercon - The material (2) |
Zirconium oxide – where other material will fail. Take a good look at the brake discs of a new Porsche? Consider how the Space Shuttle tolerates the enormous heat generation? In pumps, cutting tools and internal combustion engines, the secret’s out: zirconium oxide. Without exception, the high-performance ceramic plays an important but inconspicuous role. This is true in medicine as well with over 300,000 successfully inserted and functional zirconium oxide hip joints bearing witness to this. Now you too can use this material, which the patient will regard as an “integral part of him/her” without giving it a second thought.
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From outer space to the space in your mouth. Zirconium oxide was discovered in the year of revolution, 1789, by German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth, but for a long time no one was aware of its potential. Only in more recent times have its multiple abilities been recognised. The high-performance ceramic is used especially for applications in space, automobiles and in the human body. It is wonderfully well suited for use even in one of the “most brutal biotopes” (Prof. Peter Schärer) that there is, the mouth. Here, zirconium oxide can demonstrate all of its advantages at once!
Biocompatibility – proven hundreds of thousands of times. Many ceramics that you have put your trust in as a dental technician are regarded as especially biocompatible. Zirconium oxide has already impressively demonstrated this characteristic prior to being used in the mouth for the first time - in 300,000 artificial hip joints. With the TZP (“tetragonal zirconia polycrystals”) modification as a component of Cercon smart ceramics, you now have a material in your hands whose compatibility with the body is beyond question.
It’s technically ingenious. The automatic ‘Crack Stopper’. With zirconium oxide TZP (“tetragonal zirconia polycrystals”), you now have an extremely strong and fracture tough material that reliably withstands even masticatory loads of 800-900 Newtons in the posterior tooth region. The so-called tetragonal modification, hence the additive TZP, ensures even higher stability with an automatic Crack Stopper. The expansion of fine hairline cracks is prevented by a micro-structural modification that stops the cracking energy. It is simply no longer available for crack expansion.
Simply beautiful down through the ages. The aesthetics of the Ceylonese precious stone zircon (from the Persian zar-gun, gold-coloured) were what first drew people’s attention to zirconium oxide. By contrast, pure zirconium oxide is white and is used as a pigment, for example to refine porcelain. You can now use the material in dental technology as well, and give many patients something that is particularly highly prized: captivating beauty.
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