The Effect of Different Mixing Methods on Working Time, Setting Time, Dimensional Changes and Film Thickness of Mineral Trioxide Aggregate and Calcium-Enriched Mixture

TL;DR

This study compares how different mixing methods affect the physical properties of two dental cements.

Contribution

The study identifies how specific mixing techniques influence working and setting times of dental cements.

Findings

Ultrasonic mixing decreased setting time and increased working time of CEM cement.

Mixing techniques significantly affected most properties except dimensional changes and film thickness of MTA.

Conventional, amalgamator, and ultrasonic methods showed varied impacts on physical properties.

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effect of different mixing techniques (conventional, amalgamator and ultrasonic mixing) on the physical properties the working time (WT), setting time (ST), dimensional changes (DC) and film thickness (FT)] of calcium-enriched mixture (CEM) cement and mineral trioxide aggregate (MTA).

The mentioned physical properties were determined using the ISO 6786:2001 specification. Six samples of each material were prepared for three mixing techniques (totally 36 samples). Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, two-way ANOVA and Post Hoc Tukey’s tests. The level of significance was defined at 0.05.

Irrespective of mixing technique, there was no significant difference between the WT and FT of the tested materials. Except for the DC of MTA and the FT of the all materials, other properties were significantly affected with mixing techniques (P<0.05). The ultrasonic technique decreased the ST of MTA and CEM cement and increased the WT of CEM cement (P<0.05).

The mixing technique of the materials had no significant effect on the dimensional changes of MTA and the film thickness of both materials.