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Yes, a purpose-built 3D-printed material can replace ivory for at least some restoration parts—but the evidence is limited to a specific laboratory formulation and project. Called Digory, the material combines a synthetic acrylic resin with tricalcium phosphate particles and is printed by stereolithography. Researchers used it to recreate missing carved ornaments on a 17th-century Austrian casket.
That demonstration shows a credible route to matching ivory’s appearance and selected physical properties. It does not yet show that Digory is commercially available, suitable for every artifact, durable for centuries, or already reducing elephant poaching.
What “digital ivory” actually is
Digory is not an ivory-colored filament that can be loaded into an ordinary desktop printer. It is a custom composite developed for stereolithography (SLA), a vat-photopolymerization process in which light selectively hardens liquid resin one layer at a time.
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1Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute2Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors3Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesThe formulation uses a dimethacrylate-based acrylic resin, tricalcium phosphate (TCP) particles and color pigments. In the final material reported by The American Ceramic Society, TCP made up 55 weight percent, or 30 volume percent. That particle loading was selected to reproduce ivory-like translucency rather than merely an opaque cream color.
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Because the particles scatter curing light, the mixture behaves differently from a clear commercial resin. Light scattering can change the size of cured features, soften edges and affect surface quality if exposure and layer curing are not carefully controlled. Resin chemistry, particle dispersion and printing parameters must therefore be treated as one engineering problem.
After printing, parts require post-curing and usually hand finishing. The project report describes staining and wax coating; dark veins were imitated with a paint mixture containing black tea. Those are examples from one restoration, not a universal conservation recipe. A conservator would need to select finishes that are visually appropriate, documented and compatible with the object.
The restoration that put Digory to the test
The Mauerbach casket
Researchers used Digory to make 18 missing carved capitals for the Mauerbach casket, a 17th-century Austrian artwork. The project is important because the parts were not generic decorative shapes: they had to sit within an existing historical object whose surviving ivory supplied the visual and tactile reference.
SLA enabled the team to reproduce small, complex forms directly from digital geometry. Once printed and post-cured, the replacement pieces were refined by hand so their color, surface and dark internal-looking veins would sit plausibly beside the original material. Chemistry World’s 11 May 2021 report presents this as a restoration demonstration, not as proof that every ivory artifact can be treated in the same way.
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Why the demonstration matters
Replacing a missing element with newly sourced animal ivory would create an ethical and legal problem, while carving a substitute from unrelated plastics could make the repair visibly discordant. A material engineered to approximate ivory’s optical and mechanical behavior gives conservators another option: fabricate only the absent geometry while leaving surviving historical material in place.
The result also illustrates a broader advantage of additive manufacturing. A digital model can be retained, adjusted and reproduced if a replacement is damaged. That potential is useful for museums, archives and conservation studios, although the cited project does not report a long-term digital-preservation program or a production system for institutions.
How closely does Digory match natural ivory?
The available evidence covers several measurable properties, but “comparable” does not mean “identical.” Natural ivory varies by species, anatomical location, age and orientation. It is anisotropic, so its behavior changes depending on the direction of its internal structure. The paper’s mechanical comparison specifically concerns natural ivory in the transversal orientation.
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|---|---|---|
| Color and translucency | The paper reports values comparable to natural ivory. The final composite used 55 wt.% (30 vol.%) TCP to obtain ivory-like translucency. | Visual similarity depends on pigment, particle loading, print surface and finishing. Matching a sample does not guarantee a match to every ivory object. |
| Density | 1.78 ± 0.02 g/cm³, compared in the American Ceramic Society summary with literature values of 1.7–1.9 g/cm³ for ivory. | The comparison indicates a similar bulk density range for the measured samples; it is not a universal value for all ivory. |
| Hardness | 35.7 ± 1.3 HV measured at a 200 g load, compared with approximately 35 HV in the cited ivory literature. | Hardness depends on test method, load and surface condition. This result does not establish equal scratch, impact or wear behavior in service. |
| Mechanical behavior | The study reports comparable mechanical properties relative to natural ivory in transversal orientation. | Ivory’s anisotropy means a single orientation cannot represent every direction in a carved object. Polymer aging and the resin–particle interface also matter. |
| Fine-detail printing | Stereolithography produced the replacement capitals and can resolve complex geometry. | Particle-driven light scattering can alter dimensions and surface quality unless exposure and curing are controlled. |
| Surface appearance | Hand staining, a black-tea paint mixture and wax coating were used in the project account to imitate dark veins and finish. | Finishing is an individual conservation treatment, not evidence that an untreated print is indistinguishable from ivory. |
| Long-term aging | Not established in the cited reports. | The cited accounts and an outside materials scientist identified aging and brittleness as questions requiring observation. |
These measurements support a promising materials result, not a blanket claim of equivalence. A replacement can match density and hardness while still differing in fracture behavior, moisture response, thermal expansion, ultraviolet stability or reversibility. Those differences become especially important when a part must remain in a museum for decades.
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How the stereolithography process works
- Prepare the resin composite. The dimethacrylate resin, TCP particles and pigments must be mixed into a stable suspension. Particle concentration affects translucency and also changes how curing light travels through the resin.
- Set exposure and layer parameters. In SLA, each layer is cured with patterned light. Too little exposure leaves weak or incomplete features; too much can enlarge details. With Digory, scattering adds another source of dimensional error.
- Build the ornament. The printer forms the digital geometry layer by layer. Orientation, supports and layer thickness influence visible stepping and the amount of post-processing needed.
- Wash and post-cure. Uncured resin is removed and the part is exposed to additional light or heat according to the material process. The cited work includes post-curing, but it does not establish one universal schedule for other printers or formulations.
- Finish and assess. Conservators can refine the surface, apply carefully chosen color treatments and compare the result with surviving material under the lighting used to display the artifact.
The process is therefore a materials-and-conservation workflow, not a simple “download a file and print” operation. A consumer printer using generic resin has not been shown to reproduce Digory’s chemistry, optical response or conservation performance.
Could 3D printing replace ivory in antique restoration?
For a specific missing component, the answer can be yes, provided the team treats the print as a conservation intervention rather than a mass-produced substitute. A defensible project would normally address the following decisions.
1. Document the object and the intervention
Record the surviving ivory, the location and function of the missing part, display conditions and the reason for replacing it. The documentation should make clear which material is original and which is newly fabricated.
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Measure or otherwise characterize the surviving reference: color, translucency, dimensions, surface texture and the direction of visible structure. Because ivory is anisotropic, a target based on one test direction may not describe the whole part.
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3. Validate the material before printing the artifact part
Print test coupons or small nonhistoric samples and evaluate color, density, hardness, dimensional accuracy and finish. The published values are for the reported Digory formulation; they do not substitute for testing a new batch or a different machine.
4. Confirm geometry and fit
Check the digital model against the physical opening and neighboring elements. SLA can reproduce intricate shapes, but particle scattering and post-curing can change dimensions. Fit should be verified before any attachment decision is made.
5. Choose a reversible, documented finish where possible
Stains, paints and waxes alter the appearance of a printed part and may age differently from the underlying polymer. The project’s black-tea mixture and wax are useful examples of visual matching, not instructions to apply them indiscriminately.
6. Monitor the replacement
Because long-term aging is unresolved, institutions should keep treatment records and inspect the part under the artifact’s normal environmental and lighting conditions. Any observed yellowing, embrittlement, cracking or loss of adhesion should be recorded for future conservation decisions.
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What remains unestablished
- Long-term service life: The reports do not provide decades-long aging data, accelerated-aging results or a guaranteed lifespan.
- Resistance to brittleness: An outside expert, Ulrike Wegst of Northeastern University, called Digory a “timely addition” but said it would be important to observe whether it “ages” like real ivory and whether additives can prevent brittleness seen in some polymers.
- Universal ivory equivalence: Comparable color, translucency, density and selected mechanical measurements do not prove identical behavior across all directions and environments.
- Reversibility and conservation standards: The cited accounts do not establish how easily a Digory part can be removed, repaired or recycled without affecting the historic object.
- Cost and scale: No cost-effectiveness study or high-volume manufacturing result is reported.
- Commercial availability: The sources describe a laboratory formulation and a project. They do not identify a retail Digory kit, consumer cartridge or printer-compatibility list.
- Broad institutional adoption: One casket restoration is a demonstration, not evidence that museums worldwide have adopted the material.
Does digital ivory help elephants?
Potentially, but only as a future demand-side effect. If museums, designers or consumers choose a credible substitute instead of newly sourced animal ivory, that choice could reduce demand for animal material. The cited studies and project reports do not measure adoption, ivory-market changes or a reduction in elephant poaching attributable to Digory.
Thaddäa Rath, a Technical University of Vienna researcher, stated: “There shouldn’t be a demand for animal-sourced ivory at all. There are so many alternatives,” and added, “No piece of jewelry or decoration is worth the death of a single animal.” Those statements express the project’s ethical rationale. They are not a conservation impact assessment.
That distinction matters. A material can be technically promising while having no measurable wildlife effect if it remains confined to a laboratory or a handful of restorations. Demonstrating a real elephant benefit would require evidence about production, availability, buyer behavior, enforcement and the wider ivory trade—none of which is supplied by the Digory reports.
What readers and conservators should do with this information
Digory is best understood as a carefully documented option for object-specific fabrication. It is not a recommendation to buy generic “ivory” filament, mix TCP powder into an unrelated resin or assume that any SLA printer can duplicate the published result.
Professionals considering a similar project should request the complete formulation and process controls, verify printer and resin compatibility, test representative samples and involve a qualified conservator. They should also distinguish a visual replacement from a structural repair: a part that looks right may still need a separate strategy for attachment, load, vibration and environmental movement.
For readers interested in the technology, the peer-reviewed paper is Thaddäa Rath and colleagues, “Developing an ivory-like material for stereolithography-based additive manufacturing,” Applied Materials Today, June 2021, DOI 10.1016/j.apmt.2021.101016. Chemistry World’s 11 May 2021 report and a TU Wien project release republished by Phys.org provide the restoration context and quotations. The American Ceramic Society summary supplies the reported density and hardness comparison, although its publication date is not shown in the available record.
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