Improving flexural properties of polymethyl methacrylate denture filled by carbon nanofibers under low filling content

Abstract

In this article, we chose carbon nanofibers (CNFs) with high aspect ratio and excellent mechanical strength to investigate the evolution of the assemble behavior belong to the nanofillers and its effect on mechnaical properties of CNFs enhanced polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) base denture resins. Test specimens were manufactured by mixing 0.5%, 1% and 3% content of CNFs with PMMA powder and the flexural properties of the specimens were tested by three-points testing. Comparing with the low flexural strength of pure PMMA base denture resins, Statistical evaluation results revealed that CNFs fillers highly improved the flexural strength of the composite resins to 66.44 ± 1.40 MPa, 68.75 ± 6.82 MPa and 89.26 ± 1.97 MPa at content reached 0.5%, 1% and 3%, respectively. Flexural modulus of neat PMMA was 2.79 ± 0.48 GPa, and the flexural modulus of the sample contains 0.5%, 1% and 3% reached 6.42 ± 0.75 GPa, 5.95 ± 0.29 GPa and 6.27 ± 0.14 GPa, respectively. Scanning electron microscopy revealed the aggregation of CNFs fillers, which is considered a stereoscopic framework that played the role of a special enhancing reinforcement under low filler content, and this strategy is considered to be expanded and developed to a common strategy that guiding our design in composite denture resins.