The high levels of hydrogen peroxide in dentists' bleaching treatments can damage enamel and cause tooth sensitivity and gum irritation. Now, researchers have developed a gel that, when exposed to near infrared (NIR) light, safely whitens teeth without the burn.
Typically bleaching treatments are preformed using 30-40% concentration of hydrogen peroxide. At home bleaching products contain 6-12% peroxide, but they usually require weeks of treatment and do not work as well. When a bleaching gel is applied to teeth, hydrogen peroxide and peroxide-derived reactive oxygen species (mainly the hydroxyl radical) degrade pigments in stains.
The researchers made oxygen-deficient titania nanoparticles that catalyzed hydroxyl radical production from hydrogen peroxide. Exposing the nanoparticles to NIR light increased their catalytic activity, allowing them to completely bleach tooth samples stained with orange dye, tea or red dye within 2 hours. Then, the researchers made a gel containing the nanoparticles, a carbomer gel and 12% hydrogen peroxide. They applied it to naturally stained tooth samples and treated them with NIR light for an hour. The gel bleached teeth just as well as a popular tooth whitening gel containing 40% hydrogen peroxide, with less damage to enamel! The nanoparticle system is highly promising for tooth bleaching and could also be extended to other biomedical applications, such as developing antibacterial materials!
For more information, read the article below!
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsami.1c06774
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