Effect of Grinding, Sandblasting and Heat Treatment on the Phase Transformation of Zirconia Surface

This study was aimed to investigate the effect of grinding, sandblasting by alumina and SiC, and heat treatment on the phase transformation from tetragonal to monoclinic zirconia on the surface of yttria stabilized tetragonal zirconia (Y-TZP) and zirconia/alumina nanocomposite stabilized with cerium oxide (Ce-TZP/Al2O3 nanocomposite). The monoclinic phase content of both materials increased with the grinding and the sandblasting, while it decreased with the heat treatment. The monoclinic content sequentially increased with the sandblasting and decreased with the heat treatment to each specific value. The SiC-sandblasting produced the larger monoclinic content than alumina-sandblasting. Furthermore, the content changes of the nanocomposite were larger than Y-TZP.