IONOMER GLASSES: DESIGN AND CHARACTERIZATION - Advanced Biomaterials: Fundamentals, Processing, and Applications - page 422

12.8 CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE PERSPECTIVES
There is a lot of work to be done in order to fully understand the structure and the
mechanisms of glass formation and crystallisation in ionomer glasses. MAS-NMR
spectroscopy has proved to be a powerful tool to elucidate the structure in these
materials; however, other complimentary techniques should be used. Ionomer
glasses have been used extensively in dental fi lling materials as glass fi llers in glass
ionomer cements and resin composites. However, the potential of the glasses has
not yet been fully reached. Ionomer glass ceramics show good biocompatibility
and bioconductivity and could potentially be used as bone substitutes for bone
fi xation. They also exhibit good mechanical properties and with some composi-
tions the machinability of materials is excellent. The structural investigations as
well as the crystallisation studies showed that certain compositions of fl uorine
containing ionomer glasses have the capability of being crystallised into a fl uor-
apatite phase in the nanoscale leaving the material optically clear. This should be
a very useful property for optoelectronics. On the other hand, the continuous
development of new materials for dental applications refl ects the need of new
glass compositions. There is, therefore, a large scope for research and develop-
ment in the area of ionomer glasses.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank Prof. Robert Hill of Queen Mary University of
London for the long and useful discussions.
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