Bracket recycling efficacy amongst conventional sandblaster and air prophy unit an in-vitro study

Objective: To evaluate bracket recycling efficacy amongst Conventional and Air prophy sandblaster at different particle sizes of aluminium oxide.
Design: Experimental study
Setting: The study was conducted in Department of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics, Subharti Dental College & Hospital Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, India.
Method: Total 150 maxillary first premolars were embedded in metal block with the help of self-cure acrylic. The 150 samples were divided into 3 groups. Group 1 (control), Group 2 (conventional sandblasting), Group 3 (Air prophy unit). Group 2 and 3 were further divided into 30 samples each on the basis of two different partical size of aluminium oxide i.e. A1 (50 μm) and A2 (110 μm) which will be used for sand blasting. Descriptive statistics and ANOVA was performed to find the difference in mean among the groups.
Results: The shear bond strength of recycled bracket was seen highest in small particle size (50μm) of aluminium oxide in both the groups [(group 2 subgroup A1 (15.43 ± 2.74 MPa), group 3 subgroup A1 (15.14 ± 2.10 MPa)], where as when larger particle size (110 μm) of aluminium oxide was used the SBS was found to be low in group 3 subgroup A2 (11.37 ± 1.39 Mpa) and least in group 3 subgroup A2 (9.66 ± 1.64 Mpa).
Conclusion: Air prophy unit is similar to that of Conventional sand blaster for bracket recycling when small partical size (50 μm) of aluminium oxide were used.