PREPARATION AND PROPERTIES OF NANO-ZIRCONIA-LEUCITE COMPOSITE PORCELAIN

The dental zirconia-leucite composite porcelain powder was synthesized by the solid-state method using nano-zirconia and potassium carbonate as raw materials.X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy were employed to characterize the phase structure of the porcelain material.The bending strength and the thermal expansion coefficient of the samples were measured by uni- versal testing machine and thermal expansion instrument,respectively.The results show that the addition of nano-zirconia is favorable not only for increasing the bending strength of the porcelain material but also for controlling their thermal expansion coefficient.With 8% ZrO_2,the sintering temperature of 1200℃and the fusing temperature of 900℃,the bending strength and the thermal expansion coefficient of the prepared sample are 112 MPa and 14.4×10~(-6)/K,respectively.These results suggest that it will have promising clinical applications in dental restoration.