Dental ceramic prostheses by stereolithography-based additive manufacturing: potentials and challenges

Abstract

The current method for making dental ceramic prostheses in a subtractive manner causes a severe waste of materials while requires excessive manual works that bring in the uncertainty for control of quality. The rapid development and commercialisation of additive manufacturing (AM) has aroused interest and wonders both in material and dental communities about their potentials and challenges in fabricating of ceramic prostheses in a materials-saving manner. In this work, AM approach was applied to fabricate the dental bridges and implants made of zirconia. The achieved geometries and dimensional accuracy are used to demonstrate the potential of this technique in fabricating of dental ceramic prostheses, whereas the observed macro and micro defects formed during the treatment process is used to reveal the challenges facing in order to adapt this technology into real dental practice. Suggestions are provided for future development of the technology, particularly on minimising the processing defects.

Additive manufactured 3Y‐TZP ceramics: Study of micromechanical behavior by nanoindentation and microscratch method

“…No agglomerates or pores were situated directly along the thickness direction. This was different from that reported by W. Harrer and ZJ Shen et al, in which the preserved agglomerates and elongated pores beneath the surface were detected and tended to be of fracture origin during subsequent mechanical testing.…”

Glass–Ceramics in Dentistry: A Review

“…A hybrid sol was prepared by mixing acrylates, methacrylates, 3Y-TZP powder, and photo initiator, followed by selectively curing of the photosensitive polymer in a printer. The printed part achieved geometries and dimensional accuracy, however, both macroscopic and microscopic defects were found after debinding and sintering, resulting in low strength [53].…”

“…As shown in Figure 7b,c, the printed parts prepared by DIP and SLM are lack of high shape accuracy to fulfil the requirements of dental prostheses; 3. post-thermal treatments are needed for the above three techniques. Obvious shrinkage occurs during the drying, debinding, and post-sintering process, which may lead to residual stress or even cracking in the sintered parts [53].…”

Digital dentistry calls the change of ceramics and ceramic processes

“…For AM of ceramic prostheses, it is usually recommended that the most suitable process is the stereolithographic additive manufacturing (SLA) that uses a stable hybrid gel containing a high concentration of ceramic nanoparticles mixed with a UV curable resin monomer as a precursor. This process allows nearly unlimited geometry design and production of multiple customised components at a time with little material waste [25,26]. By adding and UV curing of hybrid gel layer-by-layer with controlled layer thickness complicated structures, especially those with a hierarchical inner section that is inaccessible for milling tools in subtractive approaches, could be easily processed.…”