Tips on saving cement waste

John Rafelt, scientific affairs manager at 3M Oral Care UK and Ireland, discusses how practitioners can save 80 per cent of cement waste.

Cement mixing via an automix syringe has always been a challenge for product development teams. The combination of mixing tip length, design of the internal tip spiral, the chemistry of the material and the timings of the dual cure activators are all key in making sure a dental cement works correctly and has the specified working and setting time to allow accurate seating of indirect restorations. The limitation is that the remaining volume of cement in the tip after dispensing is waste and must be disposed of.

For the last few years, 3M has gone back to the drawing board and created a brand-new innovative tip that uses less plastic and reduces cement waste by 80 per cent when compared to current automix delivery systems, without compromising performance and cement properties.