“Chém bằng răng” is a Vietnamese phrase for “so expensive that it knocks all your teeth out.” It’s more commonly said in North Vietnam; the Southern equivalent is “chém bay đầu,” which means “so expensive that it chops your head off.” For functional reasons relevant to this post, I’m going to stick with the first phrase because you can make implants to replace your teeth, but you only replace a head with so much.

Current materials that make up dental implants include titanium and zirconia. Ideal dental implant materials will minimize the risk of infection and rejection after implantation, have the mechanical properties that will withstand all the things that teeth go through (eating rocks? Not so much. More like eating foods with varying softness from soup to week-old bread), won’t corrode and wear down, and make you look good. So technically, they have to blend in. Unless you want your dental implants to stand out with some embedded diamonds or gold coatings. That would chém bằng răng.

But the industry is trying to move past titanium and zirconia to bulk metallic glasses, which are amorphous metallic alloys. They don’t have the crystal structure typically present in normal metals; the amorphous structure is reminiscent of glass. Hence, “bulk metallic glass.” Research is focusing on BMGs because of their flexibility at high temperatures, their ideal working range more than that of metals and similar to that of polymers, biocompatibility.

So here’s a new one out there to pay attention (or not pay attention) to:

That’s a lot of elements, but it has a high glass forming ability, doesn’t have the nickel, aluminum, or beryllium that’s toxic for the body, and has “good mechanical properties,” according to the paper. This paper then majorly flexed on the BMG’s mechanical properties:

•   It has high thermal stability! The material is going to maintain its amorphous structure unless you pour    hot lava into your mouth.
•   It has a high compressive strength of 2GPa! A hardness of 5.5 GPa! A toughness of 56 MPa.√m! So      unless you’re going to submit your teeth to the pressures from 5 oceans, you’re good.
•   Its Young’s modulus is relatively lower than the current standard, which is beneficial to limit stress-          shielding. We want to make sure that osseointegration occurs between the implant and the maxillary      bone, and ideal bone formation isn’t going to happen if the developing bone isn’t experiencing the          sharing the stresses with the implant.
•   It has good corrosion resistance! Teeth grinders, this is for you.

We love a strong character. Biocompatible, too.

I think this material is worthy of being further developed and integrated into biomedical applications, but one has to take into account the cost of manufacture and if there are any other alternatives that might be cheaper, yet still retain the same properties. There are so many different iterations of BMGs that each one definitely has their niche use, but I would think that there would be a lot of overlap.

Sources: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1944/11/2/249