Influence of plasma-based dry etching on the bond strength of Y-TZP ceramic

The aim of this study was to evaluate the bond strength between an yttria-stabilized tetragonal zirconia polycrystal (Y-TZP) ceramic and a luting agent when submitted to plasma etching surface treatment before and after thermocycling (TC) with 3000 cycles of 5°C-55°C. The null hypothesis was that the surface treatments and thermocycling would not influence the bond strength. A total of 160 Y-TZP ceramic blocks in 2 sizes (10 size 1 and 10 size 2 blocks in each group) were distributed into 8 groups: group C (control), no surface treatment; group C-TC, TC without prior surface treatment; group SAO, sandblasting with aluminum oxide (Al2O3); group SAO-TC, sandblasting with Al2O3 followed by TC; group SAOS, sandblasting with silica-coated Al2O3; group SAOS-TC, sandblasting with silica-coated Al2O3 followed by TC; group PE, plasma etching; and group PE-TC, plasma etching followed by TC. In each group, size 1 blocks were cemented to size 2 blocks to fabricate specimens for microshear bond strength testing (n = 10 per group). Cementation followed surface treatments (except in control groups) and preceded any TC. All specimens were cemented using a luting agent that contained 10-meth-acryloyloxydecyl dihydrogen phosphate (MDP). The specimens were submitted to a microshear bond strength test and the means were analyzed with a 2-factor analysis of variance and Tukey test. Group PE showed the highest bond strength value before thermocycling (17.31 MPa). After thermocycling, the highest value was observed in the SAO-TC group (9.73 MPa), and statistically significant differences were observed between SAOS-TC and SAO-TC (P < 0.05) and PE-TC and SAO-TC (P < 0.05). Plasma etching improved the bond strength values between the Y-TZP ceramic and MDP-containing luting agent before thermocycling. After thermocycling, all groups showed lower bond strength values.