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US 10,136,973 B2Granted
Lithium silicate materials
AssigneeIvoclar Vivadent AG
InventorsMarcel Schweiger, Volker Rheinberger, Harald Bürke, Wolfram Höland, Elke Signer-Apel, Christian Ritzberger, Dmitri Brodkin
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Lithium silicate materials are described which can be easily processed by machining to dental products without undue wear of the tools.
Claims4
A process for manufacturing a lithium silicate dental glass-ceramic article comprising:
- preparing a lithium silicate blank comprising lithium metasilicate as the main crystalline phase and exhibiting a flexural strength of greater than 180 MPa;
- machining the lithium silicate blank into a dental article;
- and heat treating the machined dental article in the temperature range of from about 700° C. to about 900° C. to close surface flaws, and optionally, coating with a glass or glass ceramic by sintering or hot pressing.
A process for manufacturing a lithium silicate dental glass-ceramic article comprising:
- preparing a lithium silicate blank comprising lithium metasilicate as the main crystalline phase and exhibiting a flexural strength of greater than 180 MPa;
- machining the lithium silicate blank into a dental article;
- and applying a coating thereon, wherein the coating is applied by sintering or pressing and the coating comprises glass or a glass ceramic.
A process for the preparation of a lithium silicate blank, which comprises:
- producing a melt of a starting glass containing the initial components 64.0-73.0% by weight SiO2, 13.0-17.0% by weight Li2O, 2.0-5.0% by weight K2O, 0.5-5.0% by weight Al2O3 and 2.0-5.0% by weight P2O5 or other nucleation agent as the main components,
- pouring the melt of the starting glass into a mold to form a starting glass blank,
- subjecting the starting glass blank to heat treatment to obtain the lithium silicate blank with lithium metasilicate crystals as the main crystalline phase by heating the glass blank to a temperature in the range from about 450° C. to about 700° C. for a time between about 5 minutes and about 1 hour, and
- cooling the lithium silicate blank having the lithium metasilicate crystals as the main crystalline phase.
1 more element
A process for manufacturing a lithium silicate dental glass-ceramic article comprising:
- preparing a lithium silicate blank comprising lithium metasilicate as the main crystalline phase and exhibiting a flexural strength of greater than 180 MPa;
- machining the lithium silicate blank into a dental article;
- and further finishing the dental article by staining, glazing, or veneering the dental glass-ceramic with an overlay porcelain and firing in the temperature range of from about 350° C. to about 850° C.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.