Development of ultra-hydrophilic and non-cytotoxic dental vinyl polysiloxane impression materials using a non-thermal atmospheric-pressure plasma jet

Dental vinyl polysiloxane (VPS) impression materials are widely used for the replication of intraoral tissue where hydrophilicity is important as the oral tissues are surrounded by wet saliva. Recent attempts to improve the wettability of VPS using a 'surfactant', however, have resulted in a high level of cytotoxicity. Hence, in this study, application of a non-thermal atmospheric-pressure plasma jet (NTAPPJ) on VPS and its effects in terms of both hydrophilicity and cytotoxicity were investigated. The results showed that the application of the plasma jet resulted in significant improvement of hydrophilicity of VPS that had no surfactant, whereby the results were similar to commercially available products with the surfactant. The surface chemical analysis results indicated that this was due to the oxidation and decreased amount of hydrocarbon on the surface following NTAPPJ exposure. Meanwhile, an NTAPPJ-treated sample was shown to be non-cytotoxic. Therefore, the use of dental VPS impression materials without any surfactant, in conjunction with an NTAPPJ treatment, is a promising method for ultra-hydrophilic but yet non-cytotoxic materials.