A preliminary report on the effect of storage in water on the properties of commercial light-cured glass-ionomer cements

Two commercially available light-curable glass-ionomer cements, Vitrebond and XR-Ionomer, have been studied and their compressive strengths measured following storage under wet and dry conditions for varying lengths of time up to 3 months. The strongest cements were those stored in air and allowed to age. On the other hand, cements that were stored in water were found to become progressively weaker with time. Their failure mode was different from that of cements stored in air in that specimens became barrel-shaped as they were loaded and exhibited considerable plastic deformation prior to fracturing. By contrast, air-stored specimens behaved as predominantly brittle materials, the specimens essentially maintaining their integrity up to the point of catastrophic failure. Both of these findings indicate that the properties of these particular light-cured cements change markedly on exposure to moisture, a fact which is of clinical significance