Airblock is actually the name of a product used in dentistry, but dental professionals use it to refer to a step during the process of glueing ceramic inlays.

In the film you can see two teeth which have been prepared for ceramic inlays. The ceramic inlays need to be inserted, and for this purpose the area being worked on has been dried out using a coffer dam (the violet membrane), the tooth has been cleaned and treated using various substances. Now the glue is applied and the ceramic inlays inserted. After a short initial drying period under a lamp, the excess glue is removed, which is easy to do, as the glue is still soft on the inside.

Before the glue is allowed to dry out and harden completely an airblock is applied to the glue joint. Air block is a transparent gel which enables the glue to finish hardening well – just why this is so is shown in the animation.

Here you can see two ceramic glueing procedures compared side by side, the teeth have been sanded and the glue (shown here in green) is applied onto both areas. This is followed by the inlay (shown here in blue) and the excess glue is squeezed out of the hollow areas. Now the lamp is used to make the glue start to harden, you will notice that in the areas in which the glue comes into contact with oxygen small bubbles form on the surface. This does not really matter, since the excess is removed. But now on the left you can see what happens when airblock is applied and on the right you can see what happens when airblock is not applied. On the left the glue joint is protected from oxygen, and on the right it is not. On the right, „air bubbles“ once again form, as the glue does not dry out and harden as well when exposed to air. Due to the airblock, the glue on the left dries out well, resulting in a smooth glue joint, and it is these little things that make a big difference, so that some ceramic inlays look as good as new years later – without the glue joint showing, while in the case of others the glue joint starts to show after a few months. The risk of cavities increases, since the inlay and the tooth cannot bond very well without airblock.