Introducing Zirkonzahn Caninus, a new entire factory dedicated to Prettau zirconia production overlooking the Dolomite Mountains.
After Premolaris and Molaris I and II, Caninus is the company’s most recent factory located in the heart of the Dolomite Mountains, built specifically to broaden their Prettau zirconia production. As unique as these natural monoliths, Prettau zirconia takes its name from the farthest village of the Aurina Valley in South Tyrol where Zirkonzahn has established its roots and owns other four manufacturing sites. These locations all respond to the ‘all-in-house’ work philosophy that distinguishes the dental company, hosting the fabrication of the company’s hardware, milling tools, characterisation materials, implant prosthetics components as well as dental materials such as resins and metals.
The Prettau line
Strongly convinced of the base properties of zirconia, Enrico Steger, MDT and Zirkonzahn founder, decided to make the best of this material for application in dental technology. To achieve that, much more was necessary than initially thought: premium raw materials, expensive manufacturing and cleaning processes, colouring concepts, processing tools, milling strategies – once manual and now digital, sintering furnaces and consistently new solutions. Everything was studied to assemble the necessary puzzle that brough to Prettau zirconia. Since 2008, when Prettau – Zirkonzahn’s classic – was first used on patients, the material line has been expanded with new variants to meet any clinical and aesthetic restoration requirements.
The Prettau line includes different zirconia typologies, available in white blanks for further characterisation, pre-coloured, and with colour gradient for optimal aesthetics. Blanks are available in different heights (from 10 mm to 40 mm) and diameters (Ø 95, Ø 98 with step, Ø 106 mm) as well as mini blanks to mill single crowns in rarely used colours.
Zirconia restorations are meant to stay in the patient’s mouth for long times, or in most cases permanently, which makes the matter of quality even more important. This is why Zirkonzahn’s work philosophy dictates that nothing has to be produced under economic or time constraints. Prettau is manufactured with no compromises, using raw materials accurately selected from reliable suppliers.
Upon arrival, the powder undergoes strict controls for quality assurance and much time is dedicated to the development of the most refined working processes, in close collaboration with the in-house R&D department. In order to achieve high homogeneity, the raw material is pressed biaxially and/or isostatically, and the most advanced technologies are used to obtain the best aesthetic and mechanical properties.
In the last few years, the company’s range of zirconia has embarked even more on the path of monolithic design with the new Dispersive line, which includes materials that are already characterised with a natural colour gradient during the manufacturing process, making manual colouring no longer necessary. The gradient is provided through a specially developed technique that does not blend colours into layers but disperses them evenly, lending restorations a beautiful and natural aesthetic.
A perfect example of the company’s constant strive for quality and sophistication is the innovative Gradual-Triplex-Technology, which provides the new Prettau 3 Dispersive material with a triple gradient of colour, flexural strength and translucency, achieving a perfect balance of resistance and aesthetics.
Production in the factory
Each production batch is accurately checked after every step, via specific tests and measurements. In this way, the blanks’ properties of hardness, dimensions, density, milling, colour and translucency are controlled, as well as the materials’ shrinkage factor, using close-tolerance instruments. Once the production step is concluded, final controls are run on each blank.
Being the sole process owners allows Zirkonzahn to have a complete understanding of their products, ensuring that they form an optimum match in the complete workflow. The in-house R&D department constantly works to improve and fine-tune solutions to create a reliable planning and working environment, where hardware, software, tools and materials fit together according to a perfect dental-technical logic.
The full control over the testing and production procedures gives the company the possibility to react very quickly to the customer’s needs, not only through constant product optimisation but also through their wide range of comprehensive education courses (‘Die Zirkonzahn Schule’ – The Zirkonzahn School), where participants are trained on the usage of equipment and materials with no knowledge gaps.
Zirkonzahn’s doors are always open to visitors. Contact Zirkonzahn to arrange a guided tour of their premises in South Tyrol and learn more about the company work philosophy!
For more information, please visit www.zirkonzahn.com, email [email protected] or phone +39 0474 066 660.
Watch the video: Zirconia from the Dolomites.
This article is sponsored by Zirkonzahn.
