3D printing of ceramics: Advantages, challenges, applications, and perspectives

3D printing (3DP) technologies have transformed the processing of advanced ceramics for small-scale and custom designs during the past three decades. Simple and complex parts are designed and manufactured using 3DP technologies for structural, piezoelectric, and biomedical applications. Manufacturing simple or complex geometries or one-of-a-kind components without part-specific tooling saves significant time and creates new applications for advanced ceramic materials. Although development and innovations in 3DP of ceramics are far behind compared with metals or polymers, with the availability of different commercial machines in recent years for 3DP of ceramics, exponential growth is expected in this field in the coming decade. This article details various 3DP technologies for advanced ceramic materials, their advantages and challenges for manufacturing parts for various applications, and perspectives on future directions. We envision this work will be helpful to advanced ceramic researchers in industry and academia who are using different 3DP processes in the coming days.