Wed Jan 24, 2001

Biomaterials Lecture # 3
Dr. Giordano

Amalgam
~ Dr. Giordano followed his lecture notes very closely. Please read the notes and here are some additional
points he made in the class and some test questions that he might ask on the exam.

Amalgam is a restortive material that has been around for thousands of years; and still is an excellent
restortive material for cavity preparation.
When placing an Amalgam in patient’s mouth you have to make sure that the area is as dry as possible.

Disadvantages:
In general when looking at selecting dental materials one of the top items on the list particularly in the last
five to ten years has been esthetic related material. There has been a boom in research into developing tooth
colored material particularly in ceramics and composite. One of the disadvantages of Amalgam is that it is
not esthetic. When you place restoration you have to be careful about open margins that would produce gaps
between teeth. Amalgam is a brittle material and does not chemically bond to the tooth structure.

Advantages:
What you also want is for your restortive material to be easy to use and that means reproducible results.
Easy to use material is more reliable in a sense that when it is in the patient’s mouth it has a long service
life.
Amalgam is also cheep and is a very quick procedure.
Biocompatibility is very important issue also and Amalgam is “Biocompatible”.

In summery:
Dental materials requirements are 1) ease of use 2) inexpensive 3) “Biocompatible”
4) Quick procedure
Studies have been done that very small amount of Mercury is released when restoration is initially placed
and when restoration is removed. The greatest risk of exposure is to Dental office personal and not to the
patients.
The concern about Amalgam and Mercury is primarily to waste water issues where water authorities are
concerned about Amalgam particles getting into the water stream. Therefore in couple of states the water
resource authorities want to push Amalgam away. Massachusetts, Illinois, and Montreal are one of them.

What is Amalgam? Alloy that is formed with a liquid metal namely Mercury and solid metal powder.
These two are mixed and that gives you final Amalgam restoration.
What is the definition of an Alloy? An alloy is a combination of two or more metals.

Classification of Alloys

 Solid solution involves random arrangement of the atoms in space. This makes an alloy that has ductile
properties. Not as strong as Intermetallic compound and Eutectic Mixture. One of the important solid
solutions in Dentistry is Low Copper that is used to make crowns and metal restorations.
Structure:
1) Single phase
a) Range of compositions
b) Random arrangement of atoms
2) Gold-copper
 Intermetallic compound atoms are arranged in regular way in space. Much stronger than solid solution.
I t is however harder and more brittle.
Structure:
Single phase
Specific composition

 Eutectic Mixture complicated mixture of material in that on either side of Eutectic point they will not
mix with each other in a solid state.
Structure:
Immiscible in solid state
Alternating layer of crystal

Amalgam preparation procedures

Trituration: Mixing of the mercury with the powder. This is done by triturator and it mixes the mercury with
the powder and gives you the Amalgam restoration ready to be packed in the tooth.

Condensation: Mixed Amalgam is packed in the tooth structure. This helps to improve the dentistry of the
restoration and remove excess Amalgam.

~ Please look at the ADA Specification #1 on the 1st page of the handout. He just went over it right from the
notes.

Alloy powder composition: Silver-Tin mixture and it is called  phase. The amalgamation reaction we need
to know for the exam is:

A. Low Copper Alloys

Ag3Sn () + Hg (l)  Ag2Hg3 (1) + Sn7-8Hg (2) + Ag3Sn () (unreacted)
Most corruptible and weakest phase of any Amalgam is the 2 Phase.
What is the matrix for low Copper Amalgam? What is the common matrix for low Copper and high Copper
Amalgam? 1 Phase (He might ask this question on the test)

B. High Copper Alloys

For this part he just went over the class notes. Please refer to page two of the handout.

Remember common matrix in all these material is  1 phase.

Removing  2 phases improves all the properties of Amalgam Restoration.

Unicompositional reaction gets rid of more 2 phase that the Admixed reaction.

Strength of Amalgam: Amalgam is strong in compression and weak in tension and shear.
Amalgam is a brittle material it tends to fold a little bit before it fails. So it has elastic characteristics.

Test Question:
Choose highest strength material: Unicompositional, Admixed or low Copper
The more 2 phases you eliminate the higher the mechanical properties. Unicompositional eliminates most 2
phases, then Admixed is the second reaction and the low Copper is the last one because of the high content
of 2 phase.

Amalgam strength
 Compressive strength:
High Cu Unicompositional  High Cu Admixed  Low Cu
 Tensile strength:
Equal except early
 Phase:
Ag3Sn ()  Ag2Hg3 (1)  Sn7-8Hg (2)

Amalgam is a very good conductor of heat and cold. Can cause sensitivity to hot/cold. Another possible
problem with Amalgam is thermal expansion, where the material changes its dimension by temperature
changes. It is twice as high as Enamel in the tooth although we don’t really see big problems with high
extension of contraction causing the margins to open up or fracture of tooth.

Creep: under continued application of a static force to set amalgam, the amalgam will deform. Less 2=less
creep
Low Copper material have the highest creep and lowest creep is high Copper Unicompositional.

Mercury and Mercury toxicity:

There shouldn’t be any problems with Mercury toxicity. In the olden days there was a problem with
Mercury toxicity because of the fact that they used to mix Mercury in the open air. That was certainly a
problem with Mercury contamination of office and office personal. Mercury has to be mixed very carefully
and under trituration procedures. Undertrituration can produce excess Mercury and poorer properties due to
less reacted powder and increased corrosion and creep. Overtrituration can reduce working time. The
Amalgam may set faster than it should. Condensation is very important too. If you don’t condense it well
enough then you can create voids in the restoration and that will be susceptible to fracture. After Amalgam
has been placed in the tooth it has to be burnished and polished to make it smooth.

There are some bonding agents to bind Amalgam to the tooth. One type of bonding agent is when you place
the liquid into the tooth and then pack the Amalgam in the tooth structure and the liquid will sets up after
Amalgam is in the tooth. There is another type of bonding and you use a blue light to get the
polminirazation to occur and then you pack the Amalgam in.

Things you should know:

General properties
Low Copper and High Copper Alloys
Common matrix for the Amalgam restoration=1
Removing 2 phase will improve all alloy material
Phases
Reactions
Corrosion
Strength
Creep
Overtrituration
Undertrituration
Condensation