EFFECTS OF FLUORIDE CONCENTRATION AND SEED MATERIAL ON SEEDED CRYSTAL GROWTH

불소의 농도와 Seed Material이 Crystal Growth에 미치는 영향

The present study was undertaken to investigate the crystal growth onto human enamel mineral and synthetic hydroxyapatite(HA) seeds in media resembling the enamel fluid composition. Effects of fluoride at high concentrations on the precipitation were also examined in a bench-top crystal growth model adopting a miniaturized reaction column. The Ca, P and F concentrations and pH values of the inlet and outlet solutions were determined. The recovered solid samples were weighed to assess the amount of minerals precipitated during the experimental period, and finally viewed under a scanning electron microscope. Remarkable findings were that 1) both biological and synthetic seeds with the same total surface areas yielded similar amounts of crystal growth, 2) the amount of crystal growth was accelerated in a manner depending on fluoride concentrations in the media, 3) SEM observations disclosed that without the addition of fluoride, precipitation of thin, plate-like OCP crystals became prominent, but by increasing the fluoride concentration(beyond 1ppm F), rod-like crystals having a pointed edge were most frequently observed, without any evidence for precipitation of the plate-like crystals. Furthermore, the dimension of rod-like crystals was increased in proportion to fluoride concentrations, 4) there was no difference in the morphological feature of precipitated mineral phase upon seeding between human enamel seed and synthetic HA seed. The overall results support the view that the seeded crystal growth model is of value to gain insight into the mechanism of enamel crystal growth under fluoride regimens.