Wettability and anti-fouling performances of microground dental ceramics in relation to surface formation and contact angle compound model.

[Display omitted] • Elastic recovery behaviors of LDGC and S-YTZ significantly influenced microground surface profiles. • The more ductile and hydrophobic S-YTZ yielded a larger contact angle and lower bacteria colonization. • The microgrinding surface formation gives accurate average roughness values. • The contact between a droplet and the microground surface was the compound Wenzel-Cassie-Baxter mode. • The contact angle and bacteria colonization were controlled by the microground topographies. Controllable anti-fouling performance associated with the wettability is essential for dental restorations to have a promising reliability. This paper proposed the surface formation modelling for direct end-surface microgrinding of lithium disilicate glass–ceramic (LDGC) and sintered-yttria-stabilized tetragonal zirconia (S-YTZ) incorporating their nanoindentation elastic recovery behaviors, and a compound model of the apparent contact angle to characterize their surface functional characteristics. Nanoindentation was conducted to understand the elastic recovery behaviors at different depths; microgrinding was performed to obtain high-quality LDGC and S-YTZ surfaces; contact angle was tested to describe the wettability; and their anti-fouling performance was examined in MTT tests with streptococcus mutans. The surface formation model accurately calculated the average roughness, the interface area ratio and the relative materials ratio values at different depths of cut d , based on which the profile-controlled coefficient r w · F S for the apparent contact angle compound model was gained to determine the surface wettability. The optical density (OD) values showed strong correlations with the average surface roughness and the apparent contact angle results. Thus, the controlled anti-fouling performance associated with the apparent contact angle can be obtained by the microgrinding conditions-related surface profiles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]