Why is 3D printing technology developed in dental medicine and denture processing?

At present, 3D printing in the medical field can be simply divided into two applications: one is biological 3D printing and the other is non biological 3D printing. Technically speaking, making non biological 3D printing is much simpler than biological 3D printing, and it is also the most widely used field. Especially in orthopedics and dentistry, in the 3D printing culture museum in Shanghai, there are 3D printed teeth produced by 3D printing displayed inside.


At present, the use of 3D printing technology in the dental field is mainly used to produce removable dentures, orthotics and implants. In terms of the current market performance, the dental industry is the medical field most likely to apply 3D printing technology on a large scale. According to the well-known smartch Market Research Report, in 2020, the global scale of 3D printing in the dental industry reached 2.3 billion US dollars. So why is 3D printing developing so rapidly in the dental industry? According to relevant data, professional dental 3D printers have been widely used in dental medical institutions and denture processing plants. Why?


The main reason is that 3D printing has great advantages over traditional manufacturing. We will make a comparison between the two production processes: first, the traditional production process (here, the production of porcelain teeth and metal teeth is taken as an example): Impression - wax mold - runner installation - embedding - wax loss - casting - surface treatment - finishing - final finished product; The 3D printing process is used: Impression - scanning - Modeling - 3D printing processing - finishing - finished products.

It can be seen from the above processing flow that compared with the traditional process, the use of 3D printing greatly reduces the time and labor of the manufacturing process, and has advantages over the traditional process in terms of material consumption. This is also why many dental medical institutions and denture processing plants began to use 3D printers in large areas.