Influence of Battery Level of a Cordless LED Unit on the Properties of a Nanofilled Composite Resin.

The properties of composite resins can be influenced by light activation, depending primarily on the performance of the curing unit. The aim of this study was to evaluate how different battery levels of a cordless light-emitting diode (LED) unit influence the properties of a nanofilled composite resin. First, the battery voltage and light intensity of the cordless LED unit were individually checked for all light-curing cycles. Then, composite resin discs were prepared and light-cured at different battery levels: high level (HL, 100%), medium level (ML, 50%), and low level (LL, 10%). The degree of conversion, diametral tensile strength, sorption, and solubility of the specimens were tested. Data were checked for homoscedasticity and submitted to one-way analysis of variance followed by Tukey honestly significant difference and Pearson correlation tests (p<0.05). The battery voltage and light intensity varied significantly among the groups (p<0.001). The LL group presented a lower degree of conversion than the HL and ML groups (p<0.001), which shower similar results (p=0.182). Lower diametral tensile strength was also verified for the LL group when compared with the HL and ML groups (p<0.001), which presented no difference (p=0.052). Positive correlation was observed between the light intensity and the parameters studied, with the exception of sorption and solubility (p<0.001). The ML and LL groups showed higher sorption than the HL group (p <0.001), but no difference was verified between the first two groups (p=0.535). No significant differences were found for solubility between the ML and LL groups (p=0.104), but the HL group presented lower values (p<0.001). The different battery levels of the cordless LED curing unit influenced all the properties of the nanofilled composite resin evaluated.