Additive manufacturing of zirconia ceramics: a state-of-the-art review

In recent years, additive manufacturing (AM) has emerged as a type of efficient manufacturing technology for building ceramic prototypes with increased dimensional accuracy, improved time efficiency, and reduced cost. A wealth of research works have been conducted to uncover the underlying formation mechanism of zirconia ceramic parts manufactured by AM processes and to improve the performance of the parts. In spite of the achievements, there are still some unresolved issues, such as porosity, cracks, coffee staining, which impede the adoption of AM processes for zirconia part manufacturing. This paper aims to review the recent research efforts on zirconia ceramic manufactured using AM techniques. The existing works are mainly categorized in terms of the different AM preparation methods and the applications. More importantly, the challenges and opportunities related to AM of zirconia products are discussed. As such, this review provides not only a comprehensive survey of the existing research, but also an insightful discussion regarding the potential research in the future. Innovations are expected to be stimulated for many critical industrial applications.