What is dental porcelain?
Porcelain has been used in dentistry for centuries for everything from dentures in the 1700's, to the temporary "Hollywood smile" veneers of the 1920's.
It was not until the 1960's, however, that dental porcelain technology advanced enough to allow for the predictable repair of broken teeth with porcelain fused to metal crowns. Nowadays dentists have various dental porcelains to choose from depending on the clinical scenario and personal preference, many strong enough to be used without a metal substructure.
The way I look at porcelain is that it is like pottery clay; we have a mass of earth based compounds that are shaped and then baked at a very high temperature. This causes parts of the mixture to melt and fuse together and other parts to crystallize. In dentistry, this crystalline phase is very important because it affects various properties of the porcelain.
This topic is way too extensive to discuss in one post, so I will put together a series of short videos on all of the important types of dental porcelain and their properties. It is honestly pretty nerdy and boring......but it is very important! Every dentist should know these things inside and out!
Check out this introductory video for more information:
Thanks for reading!
Dr. Dave
