| Summary: | Commercial formulations based on 80:20 mixtures of Portland cement and bismuth oxide (a radiopacifying agent) are used in dentistry as root-filling materials. This study compares the impact of two alternative radiopacifiers, barium sulphate and zirconium oxide, with that of bismuth oxide, on the setting times and bioactivity of white Portland cement. The findings indicate that bismuth oxide prolongs both the initial and final setting times of the cement, and that barium sulphate and zirconium oxide have no effect on this parameter. Hydroxyapatite (HA) formed on the surfaces of all test samples within 7 days of exposure to simulated body fluid, indicating that they possess the potential to stimulate new hard tissue formation. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, the traditional technique for the identification of HA, was not appropriate for the analysis of these cement systems owing to the overlap of signals from each of the radiopacifiers with the characteristic P-O bending modes of HA in the 570 – 610 cm−1 region. In this respect, the P-O band at 965 cm−1 of HA in the Raman spectrum was found to be a suitable means of detection since it is discrete with respect to all signals arising from the radiopacifying agents and cement phases.
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