M. Moosavi Nasab , F. esmaeel Poor ,
Volume 15, Issue 2 (8 2002)
Abstract
Dental amalgam is one of the oldest restorative materials, used in dentistry, which has undergone a lot of quality changes since its advent. Copper is one of the major elements in dental amalgam. Dental amalgam is classified as low and high cooper group based on the percentage of this element. Cinaluy is an Iranian product, a product of Shahid Faghihi's factory and its particles are spherical with high copper and it does not contain any zinc and gama II phase. The goal of this study was to identify the type and percentage of its ingredients and to analyze this dental amalgam by muclear reactor. The products of the factory, at two different times, were compared with each other and also with the percentages presented by the factory, regarding their ingredients. They were also compared with two standardized amalgams called: Sybralloy and Tytin. Three typical Cinalux amalgam capsules, produced on different dates, were selected. The contents of capsules were enveloped in plastic bags and then sealed and placed in a miniature reactor to undergo nuclear radiation for 10 days. After this period, the elements in amalgam became activated and converted into radioisotopes of the same elements, and began to radiate. Then gama spectrometer system accumulated these radiations and transferred them to Span software. This software, aided by reference standards, shows the intensity and the wave length of the received radiation, and consequently identifies the type and percentage of the elements in amalgam. The results demonstrated that the Cinalux amalgam samples, regarding the type and percentage of their elements, were identical and also met the factory standards. The differences were not significant. There was also no significant difference between Cinalux amalgam and the standardized amalgam Sybralloy, regarding the percentage of their elements, but comparing this amalgam with the standardized amalgam Tytin, a significant difference was not observed.
