UV Curing
UV curing is a relatively new but fast-developing technology in the field of varnishes, paints and adhesives and in the many applications in which these can be used.
After entering the wood and furniture industry during the 1960s UV technology began to develop in various other applications over the last 40 years
Application fields like printing, adhesives and printing plates as well as the coating industry started increasingly to use UV technology.
Among the reasons for switching to UV curing are the great advantages which this new technology offers! Here we have listed just some of the many benefits:
- UV curing of varnishes, printing inks and adhesives takes place in fractions of a second; that means quality control as well as further processing of the coated substrates is possible directly after curing. This saves processing time and storage capacity.
- In general UV varnishes, UV printing inks and UV adhesives do not contain any solvents (except some solvent based formulations). That means in most cases UV systems do not have any problem with VOC regulations.
- Most UV curable systems are one component systems; provided that UV radiation is excluded during handling (daylight and neon lights also emit UV radiation!!) there are minimal waste problems due to the long ”shelf life” of these systems.
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There are currently 3 different mechanisms for UV curing:
- free radical UV systems
- cationic UV systems
- dual cure systems (2 curing mechanisms in one system)
