MANUFACTURING METHOD FOR HIGHLY DISPERSABLE PARTICULATE INORGANIC FILLER AND DENTAL CURABLE COMPOSITION COMPRISING PARTICULATE INORGANIC FILLER

摘要

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To solve the following problem: inorganic fillers are generally added to composite resins for increase in the mechanical strength and in the operability thereof; specifically, inorganic fillers with a median diameter of less than 0.5 μm are added for increased operability, and inorganic filler with a median diameter in a range from 0.5 μm to 100 μm are added for increased mechanical strength which is brought by further increase in the filling rate; with respect to the increase in the filling rate, inorganic fillers are surface-treated by a silane coupling agent to improve wettability, which results in the increase in the filling rate, further leading to increase in the elasticity modulus of the hardening body to thereby increase the mechanical strength; however, the conventional silane coupling treatment is limited in the increase in the wettability, so that sufficient filling rate cannot be achieved, and thus the mechanical strength cannot be increased sufficiently.SOLUTION: A particulate inorganic filler is manufactured by a method comprising the steps of: (1) surface-treating inorganic particulates with a silane coupling agent; and (2) suspending the inorganic particulates treated by the silane coupling agent in a water-containing organic solvent and adding an electrolyte to the suspended inorganic particulates. It is found that the thus manufactured particulate inorganic filler is highly dispersable in a dental curable composition composed of a radical polymerizable monomer, and that the particulate inorganic filler can be filled in the dental curable composition at a higher filling rate.SELECTED DRAWING: None