AN ELECTROCHEMICAL STUDY ON THE CORROSION OF DENTAL AMALGAM

치과용 아말감의 부식(腐蝕)에 관한 전기화학적 연구

The corrosion of silver amalgam is regarded as one of major causes in the failures of dental amalgam restorations. To evaluate the corrosion resistance of dental amalgam alloys, electrochemical tests such as potential and polarization measurement were used widely. But these commonly used methods have not provided the sufficient informations on relative resistance of amalgam to corrosion. In this experiment, the corrosion currents were measured using electronic potentiostat to compare some commercial dental amalgam alloys. All alloys were triturated in a amalgamator and condensed into a mold described in A.D.A. Specification No. 1 to produce cylinder form specimens of 4mm diameter by 5mm long. After specimen kept for 1 week at $37^{\circ}C$, each specimen was embedded in epoxy resin. The surfaces of specimens were then polished with a emery paper, diamond dust, and $Al_2O_3$. These specimens were immersed in artifical saliva kept at $37^{\circ}C$, and currents of each specimen were measured for 24 hours at 0.0volt (SCE). The author obtained conclusions as follows: 1. High copper amalgam showed superior resistance against corrosion to conventional amalgam, but a pellet form of high copper amalgam seemed to be susceptible to corrosion. 2. In lathe-cut alloys, fine-cut had superior resistance against corrosion to regular-cut. 3. Non-zinc conventional amalgam alloys were more resistant to corrosion than that of zinc containing conventional amalgam alloys. 4. In both of high copper and conventional amalgams, predispensed forms tended to have better resisitance to corrosion than that of pellet forms.