A Method to Output Microbubbles for Oral Hygiene

Abstract

Due to considerable progress made in the development of micro-bubbles for use in medical and industrial applications, this study explored the method of using a micro-bubble generating tooth tray to clean oral plaques for patients who cannot effectively maintain oral hygiene through conventional means such as toothbrushes and toothpaste. Patients with periodontitis often have difficulty in maintaining oral hygiene with toothbrushes during treatment periods, especially for patients with severe conditions where brushing may cause bleeding of the gingiva and increase the chance of bacterial infection. In this study, we experimented using five rotation speeds of the bubble generator, two different nozzle diameters, and the number of nozzles was six holes to deliver micro-bubble water stream through tooth tray to clean bacteria coated on a denture. Our results showed that with various combinations of motor speed settings and pore diameters, a clearing rate of 80.99%, while in some combinations a clearing rate of 93.3% was possible. This confirmed the plaque removing function of the micro-bubble water streams. In general, nozzles with smaller diameters coupled with low-speed motor had higher cleaning efficiency. The number of holes was found to significantly influence micro-bubble dimensions, and the micro-bubble dimensions were found to have a significant impact on plaque removal. From these results it theorized that plaque removal is influenced by the dimension of micro-bubbles; smaller bubble diameter led to improved plaque removal efficacy, which was also confirmed by our regression analysis.