Prodways’ New Breakthrough Resin for the Dental Industry

Though one of Europe’s leading manufacturers of 3D printers, Prodways offers solutions across the entire 3D printing value chain and for several industries. Earlier this month, the company launched its first automated 3D printing modular system for the dental industry, which is able to produce over two thousand clear aligners per day, to add to their already impressive MOVINGLight ProMaker L series. Now Prodways have unveiled a new material, called Absolute Aligner, that will be integrated into its PLASTCure line of resin, compatible with the latest ProMaker LD-series printers.

This material is purposed for the manufacture of aligners. Aligners have become a popular alternative to traditional orthodontic braces. 3D printed aligners are removable and also tend to be far cheaper than orthodontic braces which can cost thousands of dollars. Due to increased demand, dentists must adapt their supply accordingly, while still maintaining a high level of quality. As such Prodways have developed Absolute Aligner. Alban d’Halluin, CEO at Prodways Printers explained, “Absolute Aligner was created with our manufacturing customers in mind to ensure they are able to deliver the highest quality product on the market while increasing their productivity and addressing their manufacturing requirement”. He continued, “Our goal was to develop a new resin that provides an improved surface finish and transparency with minimal impact on manufacturing time”.

Prodways’ new resin has several benefits including a both remarkable and repeatable degree of accuracy and quality in final parts. Moreover, Absolute Aligner offers precise thermoforming results as well as an impressively smooth surface finish, which in turn contributes to giving the aligners a more natural feel. This, however, does not come at the expense of machine productivity according to the manufacturer, meaning that the new resin is very well suited the industrial production of clear aligners models. Material compatibility with additive manufacturing processes, specifically 3D scanning, is further insured by the advanced formulation and color of the material.