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Microplastic Release from Clear Aligners: a Clinical Study
Summary
Clear plastic teeth aligners, worn by millions to straighten teeth, can shed tiny plastic particles (microplastics and even smaller nanoplastics) into your saliva as you chew and wear them over time. This study is the first to measure this shedding directly in people's mouths, looking at how wear time and cleaning habits affect how much plastic breaks off. Since we don't yet fully know the health effects of swallowing these particles, this research is an important first step in understanding a possible hidden source of microplastic exposure in everyday dental care.
This research project aims to evaluate and quantify for the first time in vivo the release of micro- and nanoplastics into human saliva caused by the use of clear orthodontic aligners (primarily polyurethane and PET-G based), investigating how intraoral exposure time under masticatory forces and physical-chemical variations, as well as different device hygiene protocols, influence polymeric surface degradation and particle release rates analyzed via Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and automated infrared microspectroscopy ($\mu ext{FTIR}$), thereby addressing a critical gap at the interface of dental biomaterials, oral health, and human toxicology.