Development and Prospects of Zirconia 3D Printing for Artificial Prosthesis Applications
Hyein Lee1, Dong-Hyun Lee2, Jiyu Hyun2
1Department of Chemical Engineering, College of Engineering, Integrated Engineering Major, Kyunghee University, Yongin17140, Republic of Korea.
Chemical Reviews
|July 27, 2026
Summary
Patient-specific zirconia prostheses manufactured via photopolymerization 3D printing show promise. Addressing process-defect-performance relationships is crucial for clinical translation and scalable production of reliable artificial limbs.
Area of Science:
- Biomaterials Engineering
- Additive Manufacturing
- Medical Device Technology
Background:
- Patient-specific prosthetics are advancing with zirconia-based 3D printing due to excellent mechanical properties and biocompatibility.
- Clinical translation is hindered by the gap between lab-scale optimization and validated performance, reproducibility, and reliability.
Purpose of the Study:
- To provide an application-oriented review of zirconia photopolymerization additive manufacturing for dental, orthopedic, and scaffold uses.
- To discuss functional requirements, processing parameters, postprocessing, and quality variables.
- To identify bottlenecks and highlight strategies for clinical translation.
Main Methods:
- Review of current literature on zirconia-based photopolymerization additive manufacturing.
- Analysis of processing parameters, postprocessing steps, and quality-critical variables.
- Discussion of challenges like optical scattering, slurry rheology, debinding/sintering defects, and dimensional deviations.
Main Results:
- Identified key bottlenecks in fabrication (optical scattering, rheology) and postprocessing (defects, dimensional deviations).
- Highlighted advanced strategies such as triply periodic minimal surface (TPMS) architectures and functionally graded additive manufacturing (FGAM).
- Established a process-defect-performance relationship linking photopolymerization parameters to mechanical reliability and clinical outcomes.
Conclusions:
- Bridging the gap to clinical use requires addressing process control, manufacturing consistency, and durability validation.
- Optimizing photopolymerization parameters is essential for defect management during debinding and sintering.
- Achieving scalable production of reliable, patient-specific zirconia prostheses necessitates overcoming current manufacturing and validation challenges.
