Dental Zirconia as alternative to porcelain/metal crowns

20. June 2008 by admin.

Dental zirconia is a good alternative to porcelain/metal crowns for a number of reasons.  First and foremost, it is a biocompatible material which means that the tooth and gums feels it as the body’s own.  Secondly it is strong, arguably stronger than metal.  Third, because it’s not a metal, zironia prevents gingival graying and black lines giving it great esthetics.  The process of making zirconia is very involved.  Zirconium oxide is the oxide of the element zirconium and is among the strongest and most biocompatible ceramic materials.  It is then pressed at extreme pressure to maximize strength and density forming rectangular blocks.  These blocks are then milled precisely from a digital scanned model of your tooth that the dentist molded.  After the milling process, it gets sintered in an oven overnight at over 2700 degrees F.  Sintered zirconia replaces the metal part of the conventional porcelain/metal crown.  From that coping, the laboratory technician can add porcelain to make the tooth whole.  Zirconia crowns typically cost a few hundred dollars more because of this specialized process.  There are dentists who uses zirconia on a regular bases. 

Dr. James C. Feng, Los Angeles

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