Microwave sintering of dental ceramics
A microwave sintering furnace designed for dental technicians that allows all kind of ceramic elements to be fired in only 40 minutes, maintaining excellent structural qualities.
Benefits
- Sintering in 40 minutes using microwaves
- Compatible with all types of ceramics (multi-layer, pure zirconia, etc.)
- Excellent structural characteristics for ceramic elements
- Sintering of up to 5 elements for dental bridges
- Automatic shutdown on optimal densification
- Flexible: up to 10 cycles per day
- Heating temperature of up to 1675⁰c
Issue
Ceramic sintering technologies currently available on the dental market are subject to great heating inertia of up to 8 hours. This is due to the fact that ceramic is a highly refractory material but also because the heating element needs time to attain the required temperature thresholds to avoid any deterioration.
This requires that ceramics are grouped together by type to fire the groups overnight. As a result, furnaces are often not full and the prostheses have no margin for maneuver if the firing is incorrect. This lack of flexibility can affect the dentist and thus the patient directly, particularly in cases where a patient is forced to continue wearing a temporary prosthesis.
Solution
The result of 10 years of research, Opti’Waves is proud to present a breakthrough technological innovation that drastically reduces production time and provides greater flexibility for treatments.
This microwave-based technology allows up to 10 cycles to be launched in one day for improved adaptability and responsiveness.
The microwave sintering solution fires ceramics from their core, bypassing the natural refractory nature of the ceramic to thus reduce firing times to 40 minutes. This firing method therefore has no impact on the lifetime of the furnace. In addition, it allows an excellent structural quality to be achieved even for complex pieces such as 5-piece bridges.
These time savings also lead to a direct energy saving, as the microwave furnace consumes only 1.5kW for less than an hour.