Our founder, Zhang Fudong, has spent his entire career in dental handpiece design, development, and manufacturing. He has registered over 20 design patents in China, and two in the USA. In 1980, he designed the first reusable, autoclavable handpiece, and just a few years later, the first dental handpiece with three ports of water for surgical use. This handpiece proved an extremely valuable tool for all complex wisdom tooth removal.
Due to turbine handpieces’ internal channels, pathways, and lubrication requirements for bearing, the sterilization of turbine handpieces has always been a tough challenge to overcome. In 2005, engineer Zhang designed and manufactured the first anti-suck back disposable handpiece, which was presented at the America Dental Association annual meeting in Philadelphia. Through his continuous tireless efforts, in 2017, the zero suck-back single-use handpieces were finally available to the market.
“To design safe, affordable handpieces that can prevent cross-infection and be used by most people. That’s my dream, my contribution to society.”
- Zhang Fudong, Founder of Dongbo Dental
Anti-Air/Water suck-back
Patented Technology
Anti Water Suck-back
Water suck-back fundamentally refers to the pulling of water via the water pipes back into the system. Retraction therefore only concerns fluids and the debris included in those fluids.
To address this issue, Dongbo has already been installing anti-retraction valves throughout our systems. These valves essentially have a duckbill form, which prevents any fluids from reentering the water lines. Both your treatment unit and the handpiece itself may have these. As failsafe, multiple anti-retraction valves are typically present. They are typically used in handpieces, couplings, and treatment units by large manufacturers. The ISO 7494-2 standard mandates the inclusion of this technology in your treatment unit, and it has been available for some time.
High-speed dental handpieces without anti-retraction valves may aspirate and eject debris and fluids during dental treatments, according to the latest research." More significantly, bacteria and viruses may contaminate the dental unit's air and water tubes further, perhaps leading to cross-infection.
Anti Air suck-back
As opposed to retraction, suck-back involves the air lines of your unit. During dental treatments, aerosols are produced. These aerosols are sucked back into the handpiece, your air lines, and ultimately into your treatment unit. This result builds up over time. Any contaminants are pushed further into the handpiece with each drive air activation, past the coupling, and finally into your air lines and treatment unit. Remember that you can't clean and flush your treatment unit's air lines.
To stop the turbine more quickly and lessen the amount of potential impurities that are sucked back into the system, many manufacturers have created lower head sizes or quick-stop braking systems. However, this is insufficient because the effect builds up, and even a tiny setback might poison your system.
Some manufacturers use a labyrinth system to prevent suck-back, although these do not completely eradicate the suck-back effect, according to recent literature.
But according to our registered patent, air lines suck-back was determined to be completely eliminated by Dongbo’s revolutionary Zero Air/Water suck-back.