This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project addresses the urgent need for new mouth guard materials that provide better protection. Despite widespread use of mouth guards in sports, there are more than 1 million dental injuries per year costing $500 million in the US alone. Akervall Technologies Inc. proposes a novel materials concept where solid/liquid suspensions are incorporated into thermoplastic polymers. The research objectives are to: (1) synthesize non-Newtonian solid/liquid suspensions that are chemically compatible with thermoplastic polymers; (2) characterize the physical properties and rheology behavior of the suspensions; (3) incorporate the suspensions into polymers and measure the ability of the resulting materials composite to absorb impact energy under typical sports or intubation scenarios; (4) fine tune and match the properties of the material for impact energy absorption to optimize the protection for a specific sport or medical application. Anticipated results include proof of concept of a revolutionary approach to impact energy absorption in mouth guards, and novel materials formulations providing the basis for next-generation mouth guard technology.
The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is to introduce a new concept for dental protection and to overcome the lack of consumer acceptance of currently available bulky and uncomfortable mouth guards. The worldwide market for mouth guards is about $500 million per year, and could exceed $ 1 billion/year if consumer acceptance of mouth guards could be increased. This project sets the stage for the design and fabrication of a thin and flexible mouth guard that is very comfortable to wear, while providing much better protection than existing mouth guards. It will be the first and only mouth guard that can be tuned and optimized for a specific application based on fundamental research on tunable solid/liquid suspensions. The introduction oft this unique mouth guard technology will position the company to reach for a significant market share and will lead to job creation as the company plans to build a new manufacturing facility for producing this mouth guard. The company is committed to hiring a diverse work force and to invest into community outreach, to make especially the youth aware of why it is so important to wear mouth guards in sports activities.
A new technology concept for mouth guards was pursued that would drastically increase protection against dental injuries in sports, as well as in other dental and surgical applications. Figure 1 shows the wide range in facial impacts often incurred in sport activities that could lead to dental injury. There is mounting evidence that current materials typically used in mouth guards may not provide adequate dental protection. Mouth guards currently on the market are essentially passive shields. In contrast, the new mouth guard technology under development would lead to the first mouth guard that protects teeth by dynamically responding to impact forces, essentially "airbags for your teeth", where the mouth guard springs into action in the moment of need, while otherwise being unobtrusive and hardly noticed. The Phase I research resulted in proof of concept that use of specially formulated nanocomposites and carefully designed material structures can indeed lead to such dynamically responding mouth guard technology. A very promising result was that using this approach, a model mouth guard structure was developed that absorbed up to 80 % of the impact energy. This research also has laid the groundwork for the development of a night grinding guard with enhanced protection in the dental regions that are at greatest risk for wear and damage. An additional outcome of this Phase I research was the development of a new instrument for impact testing of materials, also allowing for the evaluation of force absorption in fluids. This instrument is low cost compared to the conventional technology used to gain insight on force absorption in materials.
