Innosuisse

Development of a manufacturing solution and surface topography for dental ceramic implant applications, using a novel two-piece implant design

One of today's major topics in dental industry is ceramic implants. The main advantages of ceramic for dental implantology are: (1) biocompatibility, leading to the significant potential of reducing number of incidents of peri-implantis, (2) natural clear color of ceramics, (3) gingival compatibility. However, ceramic has drawbacks in comparison to titanium such as: clinical data absence, less design flexibility, hydrothermal aging and manufacturing costs.

The goal of the present project is to develop a manufacturing solution using Ceramic Injection Molding process to: (1) reduce the manufacturing cost down to the price of titanium implants, (2) structure the implant surface for osseointergation directly by surface replication from the mold, (3) manufacture a pilot implant in collaboration with a Swiss start-up Di Meliora and (4) propose a viable cost effective high volume production process for the pilot product.