Degradation of dental ZrO₂-based materials after hydrothermal fatigue. part I: XRD, XRF, and FESEM analyses

The aim was to investigate the effect of simulated low-temperature degradation (s-LTD) and hydrothermal fatigue on the degradation of three ZrO2-based dental materials. Lava, IPS, and NanoZr discs were randomly assigned to (1) Control-Storage in distilled water at 37°C; (2) Aging at 134°C for 5 h (s-LTD); (3) Thermocycling in saliva for 30,000 cycles (TF). XRD revealed that ZrO₂ m phase was identified in all groups but TF increased the m phase only for Lava. Under the FESEM, Lava showed no alterations under s-LTD, but displayed corrosion areas up to 60 μm wide after TF. We conclude that TF accelerated the degradation of Lava through an increase in the m phase and grain pull-out from the material surface.