Abstract
Newly developed dental composite resins including various ceramic fillers have been developed for use in crown restoration. The polishing procedure for dental composite resin is very difficult, because ceramics fillers have relatively high hardness. Therefore, a multistep process for touch-up using several polishing tools is performed to achieve a smooth surface on the composites with current polishing technology. Dentists and dental technicians require means of decreasing the number of steps in polishing. A high-performance polishing tool provides an opportunity to bypass some of the steps in the polishing process. However, their polishing specifications are still not fully understood. In this study, a sodium alginate bonded mounted silicon carbide wheel was developed for dry polishing of dental composite resin. Using this mounted wheel, dry polishing of commercially available dental composite resin was achieved in a shorter time compared with three commercial mounted wheels designed for use by dentists and dental technicians. In addition, the surface roughness of the polished surface became smaller and the surface integrity was superior in quality.
