Technical Training Report

On

UV Inks & Coating

(Technology and application)

Guidance:

Adesh Katariya
Manager-Research & Development
Tirupati Inks Ltd.

Prepared By:

Umesh Kumar
B.Tech-Chem. Engg.( 2012 -16)
N.I.E.T. Greater Noida

Table of Contents
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Introduction
Historical Background
Raw materials
Manufacturing Process
Ink color, drying and curing characteristics
Types of Printing Ins
Printing Processes
7.1 Letterpress printing
7.2 Screen printing
7.3 Flexography
7.4 Gravure printing
8. Formulations for different substrates
9. Printing Inks requirements as per Process
10. End Use and Substrate
11. UV Curing technology
12. The UV Curing Process
13. Major Application Areas of UV Curing Systems
13.1 Application areas of UV Coating
13.2 Application areas on UV Inks
13.2.1 UV Flexo Inks for Narrow Label PrintingGP
13.2.2 UV Flexo Inks for Narrow Label Printing Low Migration
13.2.3 UV Curable Flexo Inks for Shrink sleeve application
13.2.4 UV Led Curable Flexo inks
13.2.5 UV Wet Offset Inks
13.2.6 UV Dry Offset Inks for Plastics
13.2.7 UV Dry Offset Inks for Metal Printing
13.2.8 UV Screen Inks
14. Chemistry of UV curing technology
14.1 Principle of UV Curing
14.2 Initiation of UV Curing
14.3 Propagation of Reaction
14.4 Termination of Reaction
15. Testing and QC of UV Inks and its importance
16. Future of printing ink manufacturing Industry
17. References

1. Introduction
Inks occupy an integral and versatile position in our daily lives. Our day begins on sleepy note
with newspapers and toiletries to breakfast table which is replete with several ink-labelled,
packaged consumer products such as tea or coffee, bread, butter and then gradually moving to
ouir work places schools or offices which have myriad ink laden products be it books,
calendars, photocopies, computer prints, stamps or even money, ink is found everywhere.
Generally, ink is an organic or inorganic pigment or dye dissolved or suspended in a solvent.
However, chemically, it is viewed as a colloidal system of fine pigment particles, coloured or
uncoloured, dispersed in an aqueous or organic solvent.
The first inks were reportedly fruit or vegetable juices; protective secretions from cephalopods
such as squid, cuttlefish, and octopus; blood from some types of shellfish; and tannin from
galls, nuts, or bark from trees. It is believed that the appearance of the first man made ink
dates back to 4,500 years in Egypt, which consisted of a mixture of animal or vegetable
charcoal (lampblack) and glue [1,2]. The earliest black writing inks, developed before 2500BC,
were suspensions of carbon, usually lampblack, in water stabilised with a natural gum or
materials like egg albumen [3]. Modern inks are complex formulations. Along with the
pigment, they also contain some additional ingredients collectively known as 'vehicle' in
varying levels. These exemplify pH modifiers, humectants to retard premature drying,
polymeric resins to impart binding and allied properties, defoamer/antifoaming agents to
regulate foam efficiency, wetting agents such as surfactants to control surface properties,
biocides to inhibit the fungal and bacterial growth that lead to fouling, and thickeners or
rheology modifiers to control ink application [3]. Thus, in other words, printing of one form or
the other another has been there with us for centuries; while the primary functions of
decoration and information remain same, the technologies of both the printing process and
the ink formulations have changed considerably.
Todays inks comprise two classes: printing and writing inks. The former is further broken
down into two subclasses: ink for conventional printing, in which a mechanical plate comes in
contact with or transfers an image to the paper or object being printed on; and ink for digital
nonimpact printing, which includes ink-jet and electrophotographic technologies. Over 90 per
cent of inks are printing inks, in which colour is imparted by pigments rather than the dyes
used in writing inks. Color printing inks primarily consist of linseed oil, soybean oil, or a heavy
petroleum distillate as the solvent (called the vehicle) combined with organic pigments made
up of salts of nitrogen-containing compounds (dyes), such as yellow lake, peacock blue,
phthalocyanine green, and diarylide orange. Inorganic pigments (used to a lesser extent) in
printing inks include chrome green (Cr2O3), Prussian blue (Fe4[Fe(CN)6]3), cadmium yellow
(CdS), and molybdate orange. White pigments, such as titanium dioxide, are used either by
themselves or to adjust characteristics of color inks. Black ink is made using carbon black. Most
red writing inks are a dilute solution of the red dye eosin. Blue colour can be obtained with
substituted triphenylmethane dyes. Many permanent writing inks contain iron sulfate and

gallic and tannic acids as well as dyes. Ballpoint ink is usually a paste containing 40 to 50 per
cent dye.
White inks usually contain titanium dioxide -rutile and anatase in tetragonal crystalline form as
the pigment. However, known toxicity of heavy metals have led to the replacement of many
inorganic pigments such as chrome yellow, molybdenum orange and cadmium red with
organic pigments, which offer better light fastness and reduced toxicity out of growing health
and environmental concerns. Spinel black, rutile black and iron black in nearly all black inks
have been replaced by carbon black. Inks also contain additives such as waxes, lubricants,
surfactants, preservatives, wetting and drying agents to aid printing and to impart any desired
special characteristics. Other inorganic materials such as clays serve as fillers or extenders,
which primarily reduces the cost of pigments, though some also improve ink properties.
Metallic pigments like aluminium powder (aluminium bronze) and copper-zinc alloy powder
(gold bronze) are used in novel silver and gold inks. Miscellaneous inorganic pigments provide
luminescent and pearlescent effects. The major classes of printing processes are lithography or
the offset process, flexography, gravure printing, screen-printing, letterpress and digital
printing. The composition of printing inks depends on the type of printing process - specifically,
how the ink distribution rollers are arranged in the printing press.
The principle of printing can be illustrated by simple pad operation where liquid ink is used
which can wet the pad. A rubber type is first dipped in the pad, it gets wet with ink. It is now
pressed against the substrate, e.g., paper and its impression is produced on the substrate. This
ink should remain in liquid form when in the pad; however, it should dry fast when it has been
cast over the substrate to be printed. The various printing processes differ in the way the type
is impregnated with the ink, although digital printing does not involve movable types. Each
process therefore demands ink that differs in its viscosity and drying efficiency, which is
possible by fine-tuning the composition. Before studying each process it is important to gain a
general understanding about the basic raw materials and processes involved in printing ink
manufacture.
Printing inks are necessary to provide colour for different kinds of products, e.g. magazines,
books, newspapers, medical labels, folding cartons, pizza boxes, softdrinks cans, etc. Most
goods are packaged and consumers make their buying decisions based, in part, on the appeal
of the cover/ package. Therefore, the requirement for an appealing cover is strong. Printing
inks vary in chemical composition, viscosity, drying mechanism and properties, from printing
process to printing process. Printing inks are formulated for specific print jobs to produce
proper images on paper or other substrates.

2. Historical Background of Printing Inks and Coating

In about 2500BC, writing inks were first manufactured in both ancient Egypt and China. They
basically consisted of paste of soot bound with gums which was formed into rods and dried,
them mixed with water immediately before use. About 3000 years later, printing was invented
by Chinese who used a mixture of coloured earth, soot and plant matter for pigments, again
mixed with gums as a binder. The first printing press with a movable type was first invented by
Johannes Guttenberg in 1440. Here, the ink was bound with either linseed or varnish materials
similar to those used for black inks today. In 1972, coloured inks appeared followed by drying
agents in ninteenth century.
Todays printing inks are composed of a pigment (one of which is carbon black similar to soot
used in 2500BC), a binder (an oil, resin or varnish), a solvent and various additives such as
drying and chelating agents. The exact recipe for given ink depends on the type of surface that
it will be printing on and the printing method that will be used. Inks have been designed to
print on a wide range of surfaces from metals, plastics and fabrics to papers. The various
printing methods are all similar- ink is applied to a plate/cylinder made of metal or rubber,
which is further applied to the surface to be printed. the image can be raised up above the
surface of the plate, in the plane of the plate but chemically treated to attract the ink or
etched into the plate and the excess ink scraped off. Different inks are produced to suit these
different conditions.

3. Raw Materials for Printing ink formulations

The raw materials for ink production are pigments, binders, solvents and additives .Pigmentscolour the ink and make it opaque Resins- bind the ink together into a film and bind it to the
surface Solvents- make the ink flow so that it can be transferred to the printing surface
Additives- alter the physical properties of the ink to suit different situations.
3.1 Pigments:
Pigments are considered to be the chief constituent of ink and contribute about 50
per cent of its cost. A pigment is essentially any particulate solid - coloured, black,
white or fluorescent - that alters the appearance of an object by the selective
absorption and/or scattering of light. It occurs as a colloidal suspension in ink and
retains a crystal or particulate structure throughout the colouring or printing
process. Colour Index System number is generally used to identify the organic
pigments in modern inks. It reflects the colour shade or hue, and structural and
chronological details (order of synthesis) of the pigment. For example the wellknown blue pigment copper phthalocyanine blue is PB 15. As the particle size
reduces, the colour intensity (strength) of a pigment increases and the opacity
peaks around a particle size of 0.3m. The molecular structures of four important
pigments used in ink are shown in Fig.1.

Fig. 1 Pigments used in inks

Pigments colour the ink and provide gloss, abrasiveness and resistance to light, heat,
solvents, etc. Special pigments such as extenders and opacifiers are also used.
Extenders are transparent pigments that make the colours of other pigments appear
less intense, and opacifiers are white pigments, which make the paint opaque so that
the surface below the paint cannot be seen.
3.2 Resins:
Resins are primarily binders that bind the other ingredients of ink together so that
it forms a film; they also bind the ink to paper. They also contribute gloss, resistance
to heat, chemicals and water. More than one resin is typically used in an ink
formulation. The most commonly used resins are listed in Table 1.
Common resins used in ink formulations
Acrylics
Alkyds
Cellulose derivatives
Rubber resins

Ketones
Maleics
Formaldehydes
Phenolics

Epoxides
Polyvinylbutyral
Fumarics
Polyamides
Hydrocarbons
Shellac
Isocyanate free polyurethanes

3.3 Solvents:
These are used to keep the ink in liquid form from the period when it is applied to
the printing plate or cylinder until when it has been transferred to the surface to be
printed. At this point the solvent separates from the ink to allow the image to dry
and bind to the surface. Some printing processes such as gravure and flexographic
require a solvent that evaporates rapidly (Table 2).
Printing ink solvents
Solvent

Boiling point (oC)

Ethyl acetate
Isopropanol
n-propyl acetate
Cyclohexanone
Butoxyethanol
Aromatic distillates
Butyrolactone

77
82.5
101.6
155.6
171-172
240-290
89 (Boiling point at 12 torr)

High boiling point (Tb=240oC -320oC) hydrocarbons are chosen as solvents for lithographic inks
as the solvents used must be viscous and hydrophobic. Screen printing inks need to have
solvents with moderately high boiling points (Table 3).
3.4 Additives:
Additives are used to alter the final properties of the formulation. These include:
(i)Plasticisers, which enhance the flexibility of the printed film; e.g., Dibutyl phthalate
(ii)Wax, which promotes rub resistance; e.g., Carnuba-an exudate from the leaves of Copernicia
prunifera consisting of esters of hydroxylated unsaturated fatty acids with at least twelve carbon
atoms in the acid chain
(iii)Drier, which catalyses the oxidation reaction of inks that dry by oxidation; e.g., Salts or
soaps of cobalt, manganese or zirconium
(iv)Chelating agent, which increases the viscosity of the ink (aluminium chelate) and
promotes adhesion (titanium chelate)
(v)Antioxidant, which delays the onset of oxidation polymerization by reacting with free
radicals formed during the autooxidation thus preventing them from reacting further; e.g.,
eugenol
(vi)Surfactants, which improve wetting of either the pigment or substrate. They act as
stabilizing agents for pigment dispersion
(vii)Alkali, which controls the viscosity/solubility of acrylic resins in water based inks, e.g.,
monoethanolamine
(viii)Defoamer, which reduces the surface tension in water based inks so that stable
bubbles cannot exist; e.g., hydrocarbon emulsions
(ix)Humectants retard premature drying
(x) pH modifiers (usually amine derivatives) and biocides and bacteriostats

4. Manufacturing Process
The process involves two stages: (i) varnish preparation and (ii) dispersal of pigments
(i) Varnish preparation: Varnish is principally a mixture of solvent, resins and additives. It
exists as a clear liquid that solidifies as a thin film, wets the pigment particles and binds the
pigment to the printed surface. There are two main types of varnishes-oleoresinous and
non-oleoresinous; the former incorporates a drying oil such as linseed oil and is
manufactured at much higher temperatures and under vigorous conditions than the latter.

(a) Oleoresinous varnish manufacture: This process occurs in closed kettles where the oil
and solvent are heated to allow for rapid solutioning or transesterification at the
temperatures ranging from 120oC-260oC for afew minutes to several hours. The rate of
temperature change, maximum temperatures attained and cooking times have to be
closely monitored. The whole set-up is equipped with a condensor to prevent the loss of
solvent; nitrogen atmosphere is maintained to exclude the atmospheric oxygen, which may
cause polymerization of drying oil.
(b) Non-oleoresinous varnish manufacture: These are simple resin solutions that do not
require high temperatures during manufacture. The process usually involves breaking up
the resin particles and dissolving them in a solvent in either a cavitation or a rotor/stator
mixer. Cavitation mixers contain a saw tooth disc on a driven shaft and are used to produce
high viscosity resin solutions. They can operate at variable speeds. Rotor/stator mixers
operate at a fixed speed; the varnishes obtained here are of lower viscosity since the
agitation in the mixer is less.
(ii) Dispersal of pigments: After the manufacture of varnish, the next step involves mixing
or dispersal of pigments into it. Here, it is essential to observe that the pigment particles
do not clump together. If the clumps are formed these have to be broken up with the help
of some specially designed equipments for even dispersal of pigments throughout the
resin. The choice of particular equipment is governed by the tackiness and rheology of the
ink. There are three different types of equipments as discussed below.
(a) Three roll mills: It mainly consists of a series of rollers rotating in opposite directions.
The pigment particles are to be fed into a hopper above the two rear-most rollers and are
dispersed by the shear forces between the rollers (Fig. 2).

Pigment pa rticles

Centre roll

Feed roll

Fig. 2 Pigment particles entering a three roll mill

A doctor blade is fitted to the front roller to remove the dispersed product. For
reproducible dispersion, three parameters are to be strictly controlled- the roll pressure,
their speed ratios and temperature. Water-cooling of each roll is also carried out to reduce
the frictional heat build-up.
(b) Bead Mill: It principally consists of beads filled cylindrical chamber surrounded by water
jacket for cooling purposes. The size of the beads depends upon the viscosity and rheology
of the final product, i.e., the type of ink required. For high quality low viscosity ink, e.g.,
gravure, typical bead size may range from 1-2 mm; for medium viscosity paste or screen ink

the bead size may range upto 4 mm. These beads are usually made of zirconium oxide,
glass or stainless steel. A drawback usually faced by the manufacture during this operation
is that certain beads may cause discolouration of ink; thus, it is very important to test a
particular type of ink with different beads before grinding for the selection of appropriate
type of bead-ink combination.
In this type of dispersal operation, ink has to be pumped into the chamber and the beads
(charge) are set in motion by a series of spinning discs or pins. The beads in motion break
up or grind the pigment clumps and provide even dispersal of ink. The dispersed ink is then
sieved out off the chamber; the beads remain behind and may be reused.
(c) Cavitation mixers: These are considered to be very efficient in dispersal of pigments
such as titanium dioxide. However, in a highly viscous ink system, these may be insufficient
and an additional sweeper blade is required.

5. Ink Colour, Drying and curing characteristics

Colour: The technology of printing ink colour is based on the Young-Helmholtz theory of
three colour vision which implies that white light is composed of light from a continuous
spectrum of wavelengths, humans perceive only three broad bands of this light, blue,
green and red light; any other colour of light is borne by an appropriate combination of
these three primary colours. Subtractive colours are produced by subtracting one of
these three primary colours from white light, e.g., red and blue light together produce.
When white light strikes an object, some of the light is absorbed and the remainder is
reflected. The colour that we perceive as the colour of the object is the colour of the
reflected light.
In printing inks, four different colours of ink are employed: cyan, magenta, yellow and
black. All other colours can be formed by overprinting these inks, e.g., red is produced by
overprinting yellow and magenta, as the yellow absorbs the blue light (because yellow is
the emission of red and green light) and magenta absorbs the green light, leaving behind
pure red light. Cyan, magenta and yellow add together to give brown colour usually.
In conjugated systems (one consisting of alternate single and double bonds in which
electrons are delocalised), the colour is due to light energy absorbed by the electrons.
They are characterized by a band gap, the energy of which falls in the visible region (the
electrons of the second electron pair of the double bond).
Drying and curing: After its application over the substrate to be printed, the ink undergoes
drying or curing phenomena involving a series of cross linking and polymerization reactions
that result in film formation thus binding the ink to the printed substrate. Ink drying or
curing may occur by any one or by suitable combination of the following processes.
(i) Evaporation- Some inks dry or cure by the evaporation of the solvent. Generally, volatile
solvents e.g., methylated spirits are used. However, solvents with boiling points above

120oC may also be used such as in screen printing inks to prevent the ink from drying
during application.
(ii) Penetration: For porous surfaces, printing inks are designed so that the solvent
penetrates into the bulk of the printing surface and the dry ink is left on the surface.
(iii) Oxidation: In case of inks where drying oil is used as solvent, curing occurs by the
reaction of atmospheric oxygen with unsaturation of oil.
(iv) Radiation curing: involves a series of polymerization reactions which are instigated
under the influence of radiations e.g., UV, falling on printed substrate. This process is
considered as a green curing route involving lesser energy and time.
(v) Precipitation: This process is applicable to an ink system that is only sparingly miscible
in water. Here, excess water (usually in the form of steam) is added to the ink system. The
sudden increase in diluent concentration causes the solubility of the resin to decrease
sharply and the resin precipitates onto the printed surface; the excess water precipitates
off.

6. Types of Printing Inks

The various classifications of inks are based primarily on their drying methods which, in
turn, are based on the vehicle each ink uses.
'Quick-Set Inks'. These types of inks utilize a resin-oil vehicle, consisting of a resin-oilsolvent mixture. The solvent drains very quickly into the substrate leaving the remainder
behind to oxidize and polymerize on the surface. Quick-set inks are among the most
commonly used in offset lithography and yield extremely good results when printed
onenamel paper and cast-coated paper.
'Heatset inks'. These inks utilize a solvent-resin vehicle that dries primarily by evaporating
the solvent from the vehicle, then re-cooling the remaining ink components. Heatset inks
accomplish this by utilizing a solvent with a high boiling point, and the ink must then be
dried in a special drying oven. Although commonly used, especially in web offset
lithography, their drawbacks involve the additional equipment required, such as a drying
unit and chill rolls to cool the heated ink.
'Moisture-Set Inks'. These inks utilize a glycol vehicle that dries primarily by precipitation.
The pigment and a water-insoluble resin are dissolved in a water-soluble glycol. Upon
contact with moisture, the glycol is dissolved, but the resin and pigment are not, and
precipitate out of solution onto the surface of the paper.
'Radiation-Curing Inks'. These inks utilize complex vehicles that harden and polymerize
upon exposure to radiation, either ultraviolet light (as in UV curing ink), beams of electrons
(as in EB curing ink), or infrared light (as in super quick-set infrared ink).
'High-Gloss Inks'. These inks essentially are produced with an additional quantity of varnish,
which allows them to dry with a highly glossy appearance. High-gloss inks are dependent
upon the properties of the substrate to be truly effective; a high degree of ink holdout is
necessary to keep the vehicle from draining into the paper before it can dry by oxidation.
'Metallic Inks'. These inks are used for specialty applications and to produce a printed
image with a metallic luster. The pigments used in these inks comprise flakes of metallic
powders.

'Magnetic Inks'. These inks were developed for use in banks and are used primarily for
printing on MICR (Magnetic Ink Character Recognition) Check Paper and read with MICR
equipment. The pigments used in these inks have the ability to be magnetized after
printing (or are composed of magnetite, a black, magnetic oxide of iron), and MICR ink and
printing must be performed to precise specifications, depending upon the sensitivity of the
equipment.
'Fluorescent Inks'. These inks lack permanence, but make use of ultraviolet light to reflect
back light in brilliant colors. Limited for many years solely to screen printing, recent
innovations and formulations have produced fluorescent inks that can be printed in a
variety of ways. Their semi-transparency makes them useful for overprinting on other inks,
and fluorescent pink is occasionally printed as a fifth color in four-color printing to enhance
skin tones and magentas. When used alone, fluorescent colors need to be printed on white
paper, and achieve their best effect when contrasted with darker colors.
'Scuff-Resistant Inks'. Inks that are able to withstand the wear and tear of shipping and
handling are available in a variety of grades and formulations.
Inks can be divided into groups depending on their viscosity, such as paste inks, fluid
inks and solid-state or phase-change inks. Chemically, inks can be solvent based, water
based,Oil Based, UV or EB curable inks. Ink vehicles are formulated so that the polymers or
resins are compatible with the solvent used. Therefore, water-based inks use totally
different polymers to solvent-based ink
systems.

The changes in ink formulations are usually a result of factors such as an increase
in printing speeds, which calls for an appropriate change in the ink formulation.

7. Printing Processes:
Inks are formulated differently for each of the printing processes (such as offset
lithography, rotogravure, flexography, screen printing, digital inkjet). About 40% of all
printing jobs are printed by offset lithography, 30% by flexography, 19% by rotogravure,

and the rest are digital and other printing methods (such as screen printing). Inks for offset
lithography are further divided according to printing presses used, such as sheet-fed or
web-fed and according to their drying method, such as web heatset offset, web coldset
offset, or UV curable. Lithography traditionally uses a two-fluids system paste ink,
hydrophobic by nature, and fountain solution, which is hydrophilic. All other printing
processes use a single-fluid ink system.

7.1 Letterpress printingAlso known as typographic printing, since 13th century, it is one of the oldest
printing techniques in practice. It is a commercial printing technique where many
copies of an image are produced by repeated, direct impression of an inked, raised
surface against sheets or a continuous roll of paper. Here, the image or printing
areas are raised above the non-printing areas; the process involves printing images
by the relief type printing plates. Rollers are laden with ink and they pass it to a
separate ink bed; a fresh film is picked here for the following sheet of paper. A
sheet of paper is pressed onto a type, swung back again and finally removed. A new
sheet or roll of paper is again inserted at this place. Two types of letterpress
printing machines are there- Flat bed cylinder Machines and Rotary letterpress
printing machines.
(a) Flat-bed cylinder- an inking roller and an ink fountain supply ink to the plate cylinder.
The plate is locked to a horizontal or vertical bed, which passes over the inking roller and

then against the substrate. As the substrate moves from the feed stack to the delivery
stack, it passes around an impression cylinder. In other words, a single revolution of the
cylinder moves over the bed while in a vertical position so that both the bed holding the
substrate and cylinder move up and down in a reciprocating motion. Either one or twocolor impressions can be printed by Flat-bed cylinder presses, which operate in a manner
similar to the platen press and print stock as large as 42 inches by 56 inches. These presses
operate very slowly with an hourly production rate of not more than 5,000 impressions.
For this reason, much of the printing initially done by this type of press is now being carried
out by rotary letterpress or lithography.
(b)Rotary Letterpress Printing- requires curved image carrying plates. The most popular
types of plates used are stereotype, electrotype, and molded plastic or rubber. These
presses use heat-set inks and are equipped with dryers, usually the high-velocity hot air
type, when printing on coated papers. These are of two types- sheet-fed and web-fed. The
use of the former has been declined while the latter presses are the most popular type of
letterpress printing. They are used primarily for printing newspapers. These presses are
designed to print both sides of the web simultaneously. Typically, they can print up to four
pages across the web; however, some of the new presses can print up to six pages across a
90-inch web. Rotary letterpress is also used for long-run commercial, packaging, book, and
magazine printing. Depending on the size and image elements in the printing, Letterpress
printing machines exert variable amount of pressure on the substrate. To ensure that the
impression pressure is just desirable close monitoring should be accomplished and certain
adjustments must be made throughout the machine run. Major chemicals used in
letterpress printing are very similar to those used in lithography. They include film
developers and fixers, inks, and blanket and roller washes.
Application: Letter Press printing is used in commercial operation and specialty operations
including imprinting, stamping, die cutting, numbering and others. Applications of this type
of printing include business cards, company letterhead, proofs, billheads, forms, posters,
embossing, hot leaf stamping and others.
7.2 Screen PrintingThis technique, which gained popularity during the First World War for making
banners and printing flags can be traced back to the beginning of the 19th century.
The printing technique creates a sharp-edged image using a porous fabric and a
stencil. The screen, a piece of porous, finely woven fabric including silk, polyester or
nylon is stretched over a wooden or aluminum frame, is placed on top of a piece of
paper or fabric. Areas of the screen are blocked off with a non-permeable material
(a stencil). Ink is placed on top of the screen, and it is further spread evenly across
the screen with a rubber blade. The ink passes through the open spaces in the
screen onto the paper or fabric below; the screen is then lifted off and can be reused after cleaning. For multiple colour screen printing on the same surface, the ink
is allowed to dry and then the entire process is repeated with another screen and
different color of ink.
Application: Screen-printing technique finds versatile applications used in different
industries, from clothing to product labels, fabric labels to circuit board printing and others

due to its compatibility with a variety of materials, including textiles, ceramics, metal,
wood, paper, glass, and plastic.
7.3 Flexography Printing Process:
Widely used to print packaging materials, this technique is used to print on a
number of materials and products including corrugated boxes, folding cartons,
multi-wall sacks, paper sacks, plastic bags made up of various materials such as
plastic, paper and others. The printing plates are flexible and made of rubber or
plastic. The inked plates with a slightly raised image are rotated on a cylinder, which
transfers the image to the substrate. These machines involve simple operation and
easy adaptation for the use of water-based inks and produce high quality, finer and
clear impressions on different substrates.
These machines are popularly used for printing on materials including plastic, paper, foils,
acetate films, which is generally carried out by the use of rubber/plastic printing plates.
Flexographic machines, due to their high speed printing process, make use of fast-drying
inks. These printing machines can print on a range of absorbent & non-absorbent materials
and can print in continuous patterns.
In this technique, from a roll a substrate is fed into the machine and is finally pulled off
through a series of printing units and as a consequence of this action the image is printed
on the substrate. Each colour is provided by a single printing unit. It finds application in
high quality packaging such as milk and beverage cartons, disposable cups, containers, selfadhesive labels, adhesive tapes, envelopes, newspapers, plastic bags and food and candy
wrappers.
Types of Flexographic Printing Machine: (a) Stack Type Machine
(b) Central Impression Cylinder (CIC) Machine
(c) In-Line Machine
(d) Newspaper Unit Machine
7.4 Gravure Printing:
Process is used for long run printing with sharper, fine and clear images. The
general operation involves image preparation, cylinder preparation, printing and
finishing. It is a form of intaglio printing. The image is formed on a depressed or
sunken surface. The image area consists of honeycomb shaped cells that are etched
or engraved into a copper cylinder. As the cylinder rotates in an ink pan (bath of
ink), any extra ink is wiped off the cylinder with the help of a steel doctor blade. As
the substrate passes between the plate cylinder and the impression cylinder, ink is
directly transferred to the substrate and image is formed.
Applications include printing magazines, greeting cards, gift-wraps, labels, flexible
packaging, cartons and others.
Rotogravure Printing Machines operate at very high speeds and are used by a number of
industries for printing magazines, advertising print materials, cards etc for printing job that
are long running in nature and require sharper and finer prints & images on different

materials including PET, PVC, PE and paper. These machines employ turret type unwinder
and rewinder; automatic splicing and web discharging can also be done. To enhance the
drying performance and minimize printing defects, these machines are equipped with high
speed drying systems.
Applications: Greeting Cards, magazines, advertising materials including brochures,
catalogs, flexible packaging, self-adhesive labels

8. Formulations of different types of inks for differentsubstrates

Contents (function)
Letterpress ink for newspaper
carbon black (black pigment)
9 poise mineral oil (wetting agent)
0.5 poise mineral oil (wetting agent)
asphaltum solution
280-320oC petroleum distillate (solvent)
Lithographic ink for paper
organic pigment (colour)
quickset varnish
gloss varnish
fast setting varnish
polyethylene wax paste (prevents damage
to the film against rubbing)
anti set-off paste
cobalt/manganese driers (catalyst for
drying oil oxidation)
280-320oC petroleum distillate (solvent)
Flexographic ink for polyethylene film
titanium dioxide (white pigment and opacifier)
alcohol soluble nitrocellulose (resin)
alcohol soluble polyamide (resin)
dibutyl phthalate (plasticiser)
polyethylene wax (prevents damage
to the film against rubbing)
amide wax(prevents damage
to the film against rubbing)
ethanol (low b.p. solvent)
n-propyl acetate (low b.p. solvent)
n-propanol (low b.p. solvent)

Amount (%w/w)
13.00
68.00
10.00
5.00
2.00

18.00
40.00
15.00
15.00
5.00
3.00
1.00
3.00

35.00
5.00
15.00
1.00
1.00
1.00
30.00
8.00
4.00

Gravure ink for paper

C.I.pigment red 57:1(red pigment)
alcohol soluble nitrocellulose (resin)
ketone resin (resin)
dioctyl phthalate (plasticiser)
polyethylene wax (prevents damage
to the film against rubbing)
ethanol (low b.p. solvent)
n-propyl acetate (low b.p. solvent)
ethoxy propanol (low b.p. solvent)
For letterpresss printing on corrugated boxes
(water reducible red)
Blance Fixe (CI Pigment White 21)
Rutile titanium white (CI Pigment White 6)
Lake red C
Varnish
Diethylene glycol
Wax paste
Amine

10.00
20.00
10.00
2.00
1.00
30.00
20.00
7.00

10.00
5.00
14.00
54.00
8.00
5.00
4.00

Varnish
High acid value
Maleic resin
50.00
Glycol
40.00
Amine
10.00
Black ink
(as per British Standard for letterpress inks BS3020:1959
Calcium 4B toner (CI Pigment Red 57.2)
15.00
Polyethylene wax paste
3.00
Cooked quick-set vehiclea
32.5
Gloss quick-set vehicleb
28.0
Cobalt/manganese Drier
0.5
280-320C distillate
20.0
Antioxidant
1.0
Typical formulation of an offset litho gold
suitable for sheet-fed printing on to paper and board
Bronze lining pastea
Metallic quickset vehicleb
Cobalt driers
PE wax paste

50.0
41.5
1.00
7.5

Typical formulation for lithographic inks

for foil boards and plastic sheets
Phthalocyancine gree (OI Pigment Green 7)`
Oxidation drying Vehiclea
Micronised PE wax
Micronised PTFE wax
Cobalt driers
Manganese driers
Alkali-refined linseed oil

20.0
70.0
3.0
1.0
3.0
1.0
2.0

9. Printing ink Requirements as per process:

Each printing process requires ink specially formulated for the mechanics and chemistry of
the process.
'Letterpress'. Letterpress uses paste inks whose tack varies according to the speed of the
press (though ink of moderate tack is generally preferred), and which typically dry by
absorption, oxidation, or evaporation (or a combination of drying methods). The
letterpress process, however, is falling into disuse in favor of other printing methods, such
as offset lithography and flexography (letterpress now accounts for less than 5% of all
printed packaging, for example). The varieties of ink used in letterpress printing are rotary
ink, heatset ink, moisture-set ink,water-washable ink, newsink, and job ink. Rotary inks are
commonly used in letterpress printing of books, magazines, and newspapers. Book ink is a
somewhat fluid ink, and book inks are formulated to be compatible with the surface of
the book paper on which it is to be printed. For example, a paper with a high degree of
surfacehardness requires a fast-drying ink. Rotary inks also include heatset inks.
(See Rotary Ink.) Moisture-set inks, as was mentioned earlier, utilize glycol vehicles that set
fairly fast and are odor-free, which is why they are frequently used in printing food
wrappers and packaging. (See Moisture-Set Ink.) Water-washable inks set very fast and are
water-resistant when dry, and are used to print on kraft paper and paperboard.
(See Water-Washable Ink.) Newsink, used for printing on newsprint, dries primarily by
absorption of the vehicle into the substrate, and consequently needs to have a fluid
consistency. Like newsprintwhich is made from inexpensive and somewhat lowquality groundwood pulpnewsinks also are made from inexpensive and perhaps less than
optimal raw materials. The faster the press, the thinner the ink must be. An ink that is too
thick will smudge when the paper is folded or generate ink setoff. An ink that is too thin
can soak all the way through the paper, producing a printing defect known as strikethrough. Most newspapers, however, although originally printed by letterpress, are now
printed using web offset lithography. Job inks have a medium body and a drying process
that can be used on as wide a variety of paper as possible. Job inks tend to be a standard
default ink in many letterpress print shops, and need to be compatible with many paper
types and many types of presses. Letterpress printing processes also use various other
types of inks on occasion, such asnon-scratch ink that is needed for labels, covers, and
other end uses that require a scratch-resistant ink, quick-set inks, and high-gloss inks.

'Offset Lithography'. The suitability of the offset lithographic process for printing on a wide
variety of surfaces has resulted in a large number of inks available for the process.
Typically, lithographic inks (which are paste inks) are more viscous than other types of inks,
and since the ink film is thinner with offset printing, the pigment content must be higher.
(Offset presses deposit ink films that are about half the thickness of films deposited by
letterpress presses.) And since offset lithography is premised on the fact that oil and water
do not mix, inks designed for the process must contain significant amounts of waterrepellent materials.
Sheetfed offset presses primarily use quick-set inks, which dry rapidly without the need for
additional equipment, such as drying ovens necessary for heatset inks. Some sheetfed
offset presses, however, do use various radiation-curing devices, as is needed for super
quick-set infrared ink, ultraviolet curing ink, and electron beam curing ink.
Lithographic inks primarily set by a combination of absorption of oil-based vehicle
components into the substrate, followed by oxidation and polymerization of the remaining
components of the vehicle. Web offset lithographic processes utilize higher press speeds,
and consequently need to lay down an ink film more rapidly. The ink must be absorbed into
the substrate more quickly to avoid smudging and setoff during folding processes at the
end of the press. Hence, web offset inks tend to be more fluid and have less tack than
sheetfed lithographic inks. Newsinks have seen improvements recently, especially from soy
ink, which is made from the latest development in vegetable oil vehicles, soybean oil. Web
presses also utilize heatset inks, which dry as the printed paper web is passed through a
high-temperature drying oven. Web presses also utilize radiation-curing methods.
The most important criterion for offset inks, however, is their insolubility, as they must
resist bleeding in the presence of the water-based press dampening systems. Problems
with the drying of offset inks that dry by oxidation include emulsification of the fountain
solution into the ink. An excessive amount of dampening solution (or one with a high pH)
can impede proper ink drying, and the use of papers with a low pH also has a deleterious
effect on ink-drying properties. (See Acid Paper and Alkaline Paper.) Lithographic processes
are also well-suited to printing on surfaces other than paper. Lithographic inks used for
printing on metals (such as the printing of cans and other metallic packaging) contain
synthetic resin varnishes that dry in high-temperature ovens. Letterset inks and waterless
inks are also available for recent developments in waterless offset printing processes.
'Flexography'. Flexographic presses typically use liquid inks that possess low viscosity and
dry primarily by evaporation of the vehicle. Flexographic presses use either water inks
(typically on non-absorbent substrates such as polyolefins and laminated surfaces and, in
the past, on various types of paperboard) or solvent inks (for use on surfaces such as
cellophane). Water-based ink vehicles are composed of ammonia, protein (solubilized by
amine), casein, shellac, esterified fumarated rosins, acrylic copolymers, or mixtures
thereof. They have a high degree ofprintability, perform well on the press, and clean up
easily. Water-based inks are used extensively in flexographic newspaper printing as they
are almost totally smudgeproof. Water-based flexographic inks, however, have a longer
drying time on less absorbent substrates and a low degree of gloss. Water-based inks are
undergoing further research and development due to the desire to decrease the
dependence on solvent-based flexographic inks, which contribute to air pollution. The

vehicle for solvent-based inks is a solvent-resin mixture, formulated to suit the surface to
be printed, as well as the press plate and other parts of the press it will be in contact with.
Incompatible solvents can distort and damage the rubber flexographic plates. The solvent
is made up of an alcoholethyl, propyl, or isopropyl. To produce optimal resin solubility,
glycol ethers, aliphatic hydrocarbons, acetates or esters may be added. These additives
also contribute to the desired viscosity and drying speed. The resins themselves must be
chosen with care, as they affect the end properties of the ink. Typical resins used in
flexographic inks include acrylics, cellulose esters, nitrocellulose, polyamides, modified
rosins, and ketone resins.
'Gravure'. Unlike most inks produced for other printing processes, gravure inks comprise a
pigment, a binder to keep the pigment uniformly dispersed and to bind the pigment to the
surface of the substrate, and a solvent to dissolve the binder and eventually evaporate
away in the drying phase. Depending on the solvent used and what it is capable of
dissolving, a wide variety of materials may be used as binders. They are chosen according
to the end properties desired, such as gloss, resistance to water or other substances,
flexibility, etc. Some binders, such as film formers, dissociate themselves from their
solvents rapidly after printing, which enables the ink to dry quickly. Finishing operations
such as rolling, diecutting, etc., can be performed immediately as is the case with types of
wrapping and packaging. In rotogravure printing, the most important considerations in
terms of solvents are their dissolving of the film-forming resins, the rate at which they dry,
whether or not they have deleterious effects on previously-printed ink (as in multi-color
jobs), their toxicity, and whether they release harmful vapors. Pigment particles must also
be more finely ground than in other printing processes, lest damage be incurred by the
gravure cylinder. As part of the effort to reduce the usage of solvent-based inks, waterbased gravure inks are being developed, but have not yet met with resounding success.
'Screen Printing'. Screen process printing requires paste inks that are thick and able to print
sharply through the screen. They must also perform well under the action of a squeegee.
The binder added to screen process ink must be compatible with the surface on which it
will be printed. The solvents used should also not be overly volatile, as excessively early
evaporation would cause the remaining ink components to clog the screen. Screen inks
typically utilize a drying oil vehicle.
'Ink-Jet Printing'. The inks used in ink jet printerstypically used for computer printouts,
labels, etc.consist of dyes mixed with a highly fluid vehicle or carrier that form very small
drops, can pick up an electrical charge, and can be deflected properly to fall in the right
place for the formation of a printed character or image.
'Copperplate and Die Stamping'. Copperplate printing is commonly used to print stamps,
bank notes, securities, and other high-quality decorative applications. These processes
utilize a somewhat viscous, heavy ink that allows the designs etched in the printing plate to
be completely filled in, much like in gravure printing. The vehicles for these inks utilize light
litho oils and fluid resins mixed with low-volatility solvents that evaporate very slowly.
'Electrostatic Printing'. Also called xerography, electrostatic printing is commonly found in
photocopying machines and computer laser printers. The "ink" used in these processes
commonly referred to as tonerconsists of a fine, dry powder coated with the desired
color imparted by a colored resin binder. The important consideration is not only particle

size, but also electrical properties, as electrostatic printing works by attracting particles
electrostatically to a charged drum, the point of attraction on the drum being the printing
areas.

10.

End Use and Substrate:

As printing processes increase in speed and in the ability to print on a wider variety of
substrates, new ink formulations must keep pace with new innovations to ensure high print
quality. The considerations involved in proper ink formulation include the speed of the
printing process, the nature of the printing process, the surface properties of the intended
substrate, and the ultimate end-use characteristics of the finished printed piece. As we saw
above, each printing process requires inks with specific characteristics to ensure
compatibility with press chemistry and mechanics. Ink characteristics such as permanence
depend on the end use; newspapers don't neceessarily need to be permanent, but inks
used in books do. Chemical resistance is necessary in various types of packaging, a longer
degree of permanence is necessary to maintain an attractive appearance for products
whose packaging is intended to entice consumers into purchasing them.
In terms of substrates, there are two basic divisions which must be taken into account:
paper and non-paper.
'Paper'. An uncoated, unsized, highly-absorbent paper such as newsprint used on highspeed web offset presses requires thin, less viscous inks that dry primarily by absorption;
yet, as we have seen, too fluid a vehicle will produce strike-through. Similarly, newsprint
(or roto news paper) formulated for high-speed rotogravure printing of newspaper
supplements and Sunday magazine sections also requires fluid inks that dry by absorption.
Papers which are uncoated (such as bond paper, antique finish paper, and vellum
finish paper, for example) have low surface gloss, and high absorbency (depending on the
amount of water-resistant sizing added). Inks for printing on uncoated papers are typically
moderately viscous paste inks that dry by oxidation or absorption. There is a wide variety
of surface features and absorbencies available in uncoated papers, and inks are typically
formulated with drying properties and viscosities dictated by what will work best on the
paper.
Coated and smooth finish papers and papers that have undergone some degree
of calendering or supercalenderingare typically glossy and water-repellent, with high
degrees of ink holdout. Inks formulated for use on these papers tend to dry by oxidation,
although heatset inks are becoming more and more prevalent. To reduce smudging, setoff,
and blocking, inks that dry quickly are highly desired for printing on these kinds of papers.
The increased quality of these papers also allows the effective use of high-gloss inks to
provide a higher-quality printed image. The use of high-speed web presses on these papers
also demands that the inks be quick setting.
Multi-color printing processes also impose their own demands on the inks used.
(See Printing Ink Defects and Problems below.) Printing hard paperboard and corrugated
packaging requires abrasion-resistant and scuff-resistant inks, as well as inks that dry
quickly. All the printing processes are employed in the printing of various types of
packaging as well, which also places additional demands on the ink formulation.

Letterpress and offset lithographic inks utilized in paperboard printing are commonly
oxidation-drying inks, and flexographic and gravure inks are commonly absorption-drying
and evaporation-drying inks. Glassine papers (such as wax papers used to wrap food
products) are highly repellent surfaces, commonly printed using gravure and flexography.
Various types of imitation parchment are used to produce high-quality documents, such as
diplomas, and are printed using copperplate or letterpress processes.
Various types of parchment are also used for wrapping food products, and inks formulated
need to be greaseproof and resistant to other types of materials in the foods. They must
also be odorless, and resist bleeding. Decorative papers such as wrapping paper are
primarily printed by gravure, flexography, and screen printing, which requires taking into
account the ink requirements of the particular process as well as the aesthetic
requirements of the end use. Kraft papers used for grocery bags and other such uses are
typically printed with flexographic processes, utilizing rapidly-drying inks so as to complete
cutting, folding, and bundling in rapid succession without smudging or offsetting.
Non-paper substrates include the following:
'Plastic'. Plastic substrates are frequently used in printing wrappers and other packaging.
The important considerations include minimal (or no) absorbency of the ink by the stock,
and quickly-evaporating solvent- or water-based inks (printed using flexography) are
commonly used. Gravure presses are also commonly used for film packaging. Compatibility
of the binder to plasticizing materials in the substrate is also an important consideration, as
intermingling of plasticizing materials and ink binding substances can soften the binder,
causing smudging, setoff, and blocking. The type of plastic film usedbe it cellophane,
polyethylene, polypropylene, or other petrochemical substancesis also important.
Solvents used in inks also help the ink adhere to the surface of some plastics better than to
others, in particular, to cellophane. Often, plastic-coated paper, paperboard, or foils are
utilized, and the ink must adhere to both surfaces. In many cases, these "dual-substrates"
are used in food wrappers, where solvent-retention by the dry ink film must be avoided, so
as to prevent both delamination of the surfaces and leeching of the solvent into the food.
'Metal'. Aluminum sheets or foils are commonly used in various types of packaging, and are
printed most commonly with flexography or gravure presses. Often, the foil is covered with
a layer of shellac, nitrocellulose, or other material to improve the adhesion of the ink, and
frequently thin sheets of foil are laminated on other substrates, such as paper, to

11.

UV Curing Technology:

UV curing has now been established as an alternative curing mechanism to thermal

hardening, contrary to the past, where it was only considered for the curing on
temperature sensitive substrates, like wood, paper and plastics. This alternative curing
technology uses the energy of photons of radiation sources in the short wavelength region
of the electromagnetic spectrum in order to form reactive species, which trigger a fast
chain growth curing reaction.
Out of the electromagnetic spectrum (shown in Figure 1.5 is the range from the
nearinfrared (NIR), over visible and ultraviolet (UV) to electron beams and X-ray) the UV

region, further classified into UV-A, UV-B, and UV-C radiation, is mainly used for this
technology.
The energy content of a photon is defined by the equation
E = h = hc/,
where is the frequency and is the wavelength (nm). This equation tells us, that the
shorter the wavelength, the higher the energy of a photon. UV light in the wavelength
region of 300400 nm should already be able to cleave CC bonds. The high energy
photons of e-beam and X-ray are sufficient to cleave CC or CH bonds, thus, they do not
need a special photoinitiator for forming the desired radical species as initiators for
polymerization

In the case of UV exposure, however, photoinitiators are commonly used, since

the direct cleavage processes are not efficient enough. The photoinitiators are excited and
after a cascade of reactions form the desired reactive species. In the case of using longer
wavelength exposures, more complicated energy transfer reactions are needed. From the
spectrum of usable radiation energy sources, UV technology is by far the most common
one. From the higher energy radiation sources, e-beam technology has been widely
explored for coatings technologies. It is still the most economical technology for industrial
applications with very high volumes. However, the high safety requirements related to the
use of e-beam technology and the high investment costs hamper the widespread use of
this technology.
DRIVING FORCES OF UV TECHNOLOGY:
From the discussion of the advantages and drawbacks, as well as the eco-efficiency of the
UV technology the driving forces for future developments of this environmentally friendly
technology become evident (Figure 1.10).
In general the main driving forces are listed below:
Performance, exemplarily mentioned are:

 High surface quality

Chemical and mechanical resistance
Gloss, scratch and abrasion resistance
Economy, exemplarily mentioned are:
Energy and material saving process
Cold cure, no additional heating
Ecology, exemplarily mentioned are:
Nearly no VOCs
Very low emissions after curing
Very low extractables after curing
These driving forces result in double digit growth rates in classical applications. Due to the
high curing speed of UV polymerization other eco compatible coating systems, besides the
classical 100% solids UV coatings, such as water-based, powder and dual cure systems, are
also being modified in such a way to be curable by UV polymerization. And
ultimately,general new exterior applications and especially automotive usage will
contribute to further vital growth.
Innovative concepts are introduced which will further trigger the use of UV coatings in
three-dimensional curing. UV curing under inert (nitrogen, carbon dioxide) atmosphere has
been described long ago; however, the influence on the scratch resistance, especially with
test methods relevant to automotive top coats, has been investigated in detail only
recently.
Furthermore, since radiation curing has mainly been used for two-dimensional industrial
substrates, the equipment, conditions and influencing factors of three-dimensional UV
curing still has to be developed. The investigation of several influencing factors has
triggered the development of 3D UV exposure equipment, which resulted in the
establishment of the Larolux curing process in a carbon dioxide filled pool with
conventional tanning lamps, which makes the UV curing process easily accessible to
everybody, particularly for craftsmen, like joiners.
Another very innovative concept for 3D curing even in shadow areas is realized in the UV
plasma processing, which can be visualized by the picture of placing the 3D object into the
enlarged lamp, .
In the whole coatings industry, the introduction of nanomaterials improved the
performance of coatings considerably. For instance, the introduction of a thermal curable
2C polyurethane clear coat by PPG (Ceramiclear) improved the scratch resistance of 2C PU
coatings dramatically. Thus, also a lot of work to incorporate nanoparticles into UV curable
systems has been done.

12.

The UV Curing Process

The UV curing process is predominantly determined by the desired application of the

coating. The intended end-product governs the substrate to be coated. This may be an
abrasion resistant clear coat for ready-to-install parquet or an overprint varnish for paper
cards, a coloured base coat and a clear coat for plastic automotive parts or metal coils, as
well as a flexible protective coat for window frames. The function of the coating, for
instance the colouration of the part, the protection against corrosion, scratching, chemical
attack or against weathering deterioration, determines the type and property
requirements of the coating as well as the thickness required. The targeted properties, like
high gloss appearance, abrasion resistance, colour effects, hardness, flexibility, resistance
against chemicals or scratches, have to be provided by the chemical formulation, consisting
of base resins, diluents, photoinitiators and various additives.
Furthermore, an appropriate selection of the components has to be done in order
to enable an effective curing process; for instance, in coatings containing pigments or UV
light stabilizers, the spectral absorbance of the photoinitiator has to be adjusted to a
spectral region where the pigments or UV absorbers are fairly transparent. This fine tuning
is necessary to match the characteristics of the lamp system with the chemistry of the
coating to provide an economic curing process.
Besides the physical properties of the cured material to be obtained, the economics of the
coating process is the most important variable which decides over the type of coating used.
Thus, in order to calculate the total costs of a coating process, not only materials costs but
the whole process design and the equipment set-up have to be considered in order to
compare different coating processes with each other. UV curable coatings are always in
competition with thermally curable systems of the classical solvent-type, water-based or
powder coatings.
Some economic factors of UV curing have been discussed by Stowe,1 with cost examples
for ink, coating and adhesive applications in comparison with thermal hardening, if
applicable. UV curing in general offers a number of advantages over competitive coatings,
while some can be related to costs, others relate to performance, environmentally
compliance or processes not achievable with other methods. However, no general
comparison of process economics can be made; it has to be done rather in a case to case
study.
Thus, the UV curing process relies crucially on an efficient cogging of the required
application properties with the chemistry chosen to fulfill the performance requirements as
well as the UV curing equipment applied to provide a fast and complete cure in order to
meet the economical and ecological aspects of coating technology (Figure )

UV curing in its basics is a fast, room temperature curing process indicating low energy
consumption and requiring little space for the equipment.

13.

Application Areas of UV Technology

From the application point of view, UV curable coatings are mainly used in such industrial
applications where thermal curing is hardly possible, like curing of coatings on temperature
sensitive substrates, like wood, paper and plastics, and in imaging applications, where only
selected areas should be polymerized, like in polymer printing plates and photoresists.
Specific applications of photocurable coatings are clear coats for parquet, furniture, vinyl
flooring, on plastic substrates (skies, boards), compact discs, headlight lenses, overprint
varnishes (posters, high gloss packaging), adhesives, protective coatings for optical fibres,
electronic parts. Applications of photocurable coatings on metals (automotive, coil coating)
and exterior uses are just emerging. These applications cover a large range of properties.
The function of the coating and the desired end product properties determine the
chemistry to be used in order to fulfill the application requirements. For instance, for
overprint varnishes (OVP) on book covers, art prints, post cards, photos, etc. used to
protect the printed image and increase the appearance by a high gloss finish, the OVP layer
thickness is in the range of 810 m, cured at a speed of about 6080 m/min. Such a clear
coat of moderate thickness can be composed of standard acrylate resins and diluents;
merely the photoinitiator system has to be selected to comply with the high curing speed.
The curing can be performed with a standard mercury lamp set-up. UV coatings on wood,
for example, fibre boards, plywood or veneer, have different functions. UV primer may
have to stabilize the wooden support and ensure adhesion. This layer is also very thin and
will be cured with standard equipment. If a wooden dcor, however, is printed on top of

the primer or printed on a foil and laminated onto the particle board, this dcor layer will
contain pigments and therefore the photoinitiator has to be chosen to absorb at longer
wavelength in order to match with a transparent area of the pigment. In this case, a lamp
system should be chosen, which also has significant emissions in the longer wavelength
range. The same applies if a clear coat is used for exterior applications, for instance a clear
coat for polycarbonate headlamps. Here a UV light absorber has to be used, which also
absorbs at least in the UV-B range.
UV printing inks are used for example in the offset, flexographic and gravure printing
process at a layer thickness in the range of up to 2 m. Since these inks are highly
pigmented, even at the relatively low thickness, the through-cure is often difficult to
achieve.
These few examples have been selected to demonstrate, that the required properties of
the coating determine the chemistry to be used, and that photochemistry and the
exposure equipment then have to be adjusted to achieve the target properties in an
efficient cure process (Figure ).

13.1 UV Curable coatings

Coatings are found almost anywhere in daily life, the most prominent examples are
architectural
wall coatings and automotive paints. They are applied in order to provide:
decorative appearance, and/or
protective barrier.
The main functions of a coating are thus on the one hand to ensure the desired appearance
(colour, gloss) and on the other hand the necessary protection, against corrosion, stone

chipping, scratches, abrasion or chemical attack, like red wine, coffee or mustard on
furniture
coatings or acid rain, tree resins or bird excrements on automotive coatings, as shown
in Figure

Whereas the do-it-yourself architectural coatings are almost all water-based, the vast
majority of industrially used coatings, applied in factories on various substrates, like
vehicles, furniture, metal cans, paperboards, etc., still contain solvents.
The coatings and application spectrum discussed in this book are predominantly based on
the industrial coatings sector, which had a share of about 40% of the whole worldwide
coatings market (60% architectural).
COATING MARKETS AND MARKET PROSPECTS
The market prospects of future coating technologies in the industrial paint sector are
reflecting the environmental concerns about the use of solvents, and hence governed by
VOC (volatile organic carbon) regulations. According to these regulations, the market share
of solvent-based coatings is declining significantly and the share of alternative,
environmentally friendly systems, especially water-based, powder, and radiation curable
(UV/electronbeam) coatings is steadily increasing, as depicted in the chart in Figure

(Paulus, reported at RadTech Conference, Barcelona 2005).

Further information about Coating market developments
in the specific sectors of the coatings industry is available by numerous market research
institutes.2 As can be seen from the technology split in Figure 1.2, the predictions of the
total amount of solvent-based systems for 2015 are only slightly lower than the amounts in
2003, however, a considerable part of the classical solvent-based systems containing from
5070% solvents are shifted to higher solids systems with up to 80%solids. The
reluctance to switch away from solvent-based systems is often related to the excellent
properties of such coatings, as well as the ease of handling and the high comfort factor
gained over the years of working with solvent-based coatings.
A comparison of the most suitable future coating technologies reveals that all alternatives
to the classical solvent-borne coatings have specific advantages and drawbacks. High
solids systems are closest to conventional solvent-based coatings and hence most easily
adopted by manufacturers of solvent-borne coatings. However, they still consist of up to
30% solvents and have to be replaced in the long run. Water-based systems are well
developed, however, they still lack performance when directly exposed to the
environment, mainly due to their sensitivity to humidity, which is a consequence of the use
of water compatible groups for solubilizing or dispersing the systems in water. Furthermore
drying of water-based systems requires more energy and specially designed drying units.
The most environmentally friendly coatings are powder and radiation curable (UV/EB)
systems, which are based on 100% solid or liquid formulations. The drawbacks of these
coating systems are related to their performance. Due to the interference of melting and
film formation with the cross-linking reaction, powder coatings often exhibit an orange
peel structure. Radiation curable systems struggle with oxygen inhibition reactions of the

radical induced polymerisation, mainly at the surface. Furthermore, UV light absorbing

components that are present in the formulation like pigments, additives or UV absorbers
can cause through-cure issues.
Comparison of advantages and drawbacks of future coating technologies

UV COATING MARKETS AND MARKET PROSPECTS

Compared with the total resins market for industrial coatings and inks the share of
radiation curable products is still small (<5%) and will remain rather small even at higher
growth rates than the average market. Other compliant technologies like powder and
waterborne will also take their share at the expense of solvent-borne coatings. The
development of the total volume of industrial coatings in Europe and the share of UV
systems, as well as the main topics and trends has been described by Bankowsky.
In UV technology, as in almost all sectors, the fastest growth rates are in Asia. However,for
Europe and NAFTA a growth rate in the range of 9% p.a. is expected for UV coatings, which
is considerably higher compared with the average growth of the coatings industry.
These data can furthermore be split into the most important industrial market sectors,
wood, graphic arts, industrial and automotive applications.
As can be seen from Table 1.3, the highest growth rates will be expected in new
applications, like automotive and general industry, due to a high substitution potential of
solventborne coatings. The UV technology will be established in automotive coatings within
a reasonable time-frame, starting with refinish applications and finally hopefully penetrate
into OEM applications.

The usage of UV coatings technology is different in the three major regions, NAFTA,
Europe and Far East (Figure ).

Whereas in Europe the industrial wood coatings dominate,the major applications in the US

are graphic arts (inks and overprint varnishes) and in Far East the area of electronic and
display applications (others). The graphics area of inks and overprint varnishes also has a
considerable share in all regions and has by far the highest market share of UV coatings on
a worldwide basis.
These figures give a rough understanding of the radiation curing market, however, the
absolute values of different market studies vary, due to different definitions of the market
segments (for example sometimes industrial coatings contain wood coatings, but separate
opto-electronics), as well as different definitions and synopsis of resins, diluents and
formulations.
Looking at the trends across the regions Frost& Sullivan5 groups the applications into
graphic arts (printing inks, plates and overprint varnishes), industrial coatings (wood,
plastics, metal and others), opto-electronics (photoresists, resists, optical fibre and liquid
crystal display (LCD)) and adhesives (structural, laminating and pressure sensitive adhesives
(PSA)). In 2003 in US the biggest application is graphics (58%), followed by industrial (29%)
and opto-electronics (9%), in EU the biggest is industrial (47%, including wood), followed by
graphics (35%) and opto-electronics (17%). The forecasts of the development in the regions
are estimated in US to 5%, in Europe to 3% and to 10% in Asia. A detailed insight into the
development of the emerging Asian radiation curing markets has been given recently for
Asia in general,6 Japan,7 Thailand8 and China.9 In these market studies, the total Asian UV
market for resins was estimated to about 76,000 tons in 2004 with a Japanese share of 40%
and a Chinese share of 25%. The market segments dominating are wood coatings including
floorings, plastics (computer components, mobile phones and cosmetic/personal care
packaging), and electronics, like photoresists and display applications.
Therefore, these figures also include special UV curable or patternable systems, like
photoresists for semiconductors and resists for LCDs.

In Japan the total UV market volume in 2004 was estimated to 46,000 tons, whereof
18,000 tons are photoresists, 16,000 tons coatings (wood 7000; hard coatings 4000;
ceramic 1700 and optical fiber 1100 tons), 9800 tons inks (offset inks 6800 tons) and 1700
tons adhesives (digital versatile disk (DVD) bonding and display). The raw materials
(reactive diluents and oligomers) summed up to about 36,500 tons. Outstanding annual
growth rates in Japan will be expected for photoresists in the semiconductor industry,
photoresists for LCD, as well as barrier rib for plasma displays and film coatings (antireflection for displays, scratch resistant hard coatings).
In Thailand the graphic arts market contributes 80% of the use of UV curable systems and
wood coatings the remaining 20%. It is dominated by coating and printing plastics for
packaging, about 60% of all printing inks applied by screen printing.
In China, coatings and inks are the main applications with a total output of 23,000 tons of
UV curable coatings and 9000 tons of inks. The coatings were used for wood/bamboo

(14,500), overprint varnishes for paper (4300), plastics (1900), PVC (1300), automotive
(800) and others. The total growth rate of raw materials was 11.8% and of UV curable
products 27.4% in 2004. The growth and the perspectives stem from increasing
penetration of UV technology in the various applications as well as from a buoyant overall
market.
At the RadTech Conference 2005 in Barcelona, considerable interest has been expressed in
the session dealing with e-beam technology for printing, varnishing and laminating for
the packaging industry.10 The reasons for this alertness are new developments of
compact and less expensive EB equipment and new formulation advances in flexographic
printing inks, coatings and adhesives. Especially in the packaging printing for food contact
applications the use of EB technology has advantages over UV coating since no
photoinitiator is needed, which can migrate, if the coating is inadequately cured.
As can be seen from the few application examples shown in Figure 1.7, UV curable coatings
are traditionally used on temperature sensitive substrates, like wood, paper and plastics,
for example, clear coats for parquet, furniture, vinyl flooring, on plastic substrates (crash
helmet, boards), compact discs, headlight lenses or overprint varnishes (posters, high gloss
packaging). However, since coatings are used almost everywhere, the UV coatings market
is expanding to new applications, where traditionally thermal curing systems have been the
workhorses.

Applications like UV curable coatings on metals (automotive, coil coating) and exterior
uses on windows, on glass, bikes, on appliances, like refrigerators, washing machines, and
most prominently on cars are good examples. A multiplicity of coating applications is often

less noticed, such as adhesives and protective coatings for DVD and CDs, protective
coating on glass fiber wires, inside and outside of beverage cans, on automotive parts, like
headlight mirrors and in multiple functions on electronic parts. This list can easily be
extended even further.
Up to now, UV curable systems are mainly used in clear coat applications, thus posing high
demands on the performance of this layer; at the surface of the coating it is exposed to
attack by mechanical or chemical stresses, like scratches, household chemicals (detergents,
red wine, coffee, mustard), by air polluents (acids, water, bird excrements) as well as stone
chipping or many other impacts. The formulations used for radiation curable coatings
depend therefore on the specific performance requirements and on the application
technique.
The traditional formulations of UV curable coatings are still 100% liquids (or also commonly
referred to 100% solids, despite used in liquid form, in order to point out that they contain
no solvents or other volatiles). However, in the meantime, due to the consideration of UV
curing as an alternative to thermal hardening, the use of small amounts of solvents in order
to reduce the viscosity, the formulation of UV curable water-based systems and the
development of UV powder have been pursued.
The market penetration of UV coatings is up to now still regarded as a niche technology.
This is due to several factors, one decisive reason is based on the curing technology itself,
which is still stamped as a two-dimensional curing process, in which only planar substrates
are feasible. Up to now there are only few applications involving three-dimensional
objects.
As shown schematically in the diagram of Figure 1.8, the application processing is
mainly based on industrial applications on two-dimensional substrates. The substrate is
first coated, exemplarily shown is a casting line, and then passed under lamp units, where
it is exposed to intense radiation.Within a fraction of a second, the liquid low molecular
mass is thereby transferred via a photo-induced radical polymerization to a solid
crosslinked network.
After the end of the line, the fully cured and dry substrate can be stacked and further

processed

immediately.

Typical compositions of UV curable coatings (Table 1.5) contain in the range of 25% to 90%
oligomeric resins, which are responsible for the film formation and the basic coating
properties. Reactive diluents are low molecular weight compounds, which are incorporated
into the polymer network, and used instead of solvents (in conventional lacquers) in order
to adjust the viscosity to the requirements of the application process. Typical application
viscosities range from 30005000 MPa s (Pascal second) for roller application to 100200
mPa s for spray applications.

In UV curable lacquers, about 18% photoinitiators, as well as several other additives

(from 1% up to 50%), like leveling agents, stabilizers, UV absorbers, radical scavengers,
pigments and so on, are used to tailor the formulation to the application process and
coating property requirements.
This general composition of UV curable coatings applies to radically polymerizable coatings
as well as to cationically curable systems and EB curable coating, which, however, do not
need photoinitiators.
ADVANTAGES AND DRAWBACKS OF UV COATINGS
Some general advantages and disadvantages of UV curable coatings have already been
mentioned in Table 1.1. From the many advantages and disadvantages mentioned in the
literature, some of the most important are listed below:
Economical advantages
Energy saving (commonly rapid cure at room temperature)
High production speed
Small space requirements
Immediate post cure processing possible
Ecological advantages
In general solvent free formulations (VOC reduction)
Possibility of easy recycling (waste reduction)
Energy saving
Performance advantages
Low substrate heating
High product durability
Application versatility
High scratch resistance and chemical resistance
Exceptional abrasion, stain and solvent resistance
Superior toughness
Drawbacks
Material costs are higher than, e.g., alkyds, polyesters or epoxies
3D curing equipment development is in its infancy
UV curing in the presence of UV stabilizers decelerated
Oxygen inhibition at the surface (in many radical curing systems)
Sensitivity to moisture (cationic curing system)
Difficult through-cure of pigmented coatings (at thicknesses >5 m)
Topics to eliminate weaknesses
Improving adhesion to metal, plastics
Minimizing skin irritation caused by some reactive diluents
Reducing odor (of the formulations)
Reducing extractables of cured coatings
Improving photoinitiators (cost, migration, volatility)
Direct food contact packaging approval
While the advantages and good performance characteristics of this technology are very
obvious, the reasons for the limited penetration into large volume coating applications

must lie in some substantial disadvantages. Major reasons are the limited availability of
three-dimensional curing equipment, the very limited use of UV cured coatings in exterior
applications, due to the existing paradigm that UV curing would not be possible in the
presence of UV exterior durability stabilizers, and higher material costs compared to
conventional coatings.
One of the major reasons for the almost exclusive application of UV curing in
twodimensional curing systems is the fact that the radiant power of the lamp decreases
with the square of the distance. Thus, it is difficult to control the effective energy (radiant
power arriving at the surface/curing time) necessary to cure the coating sufficiently at
every point of a three dimensional substrate. Major advances in the design and radiometric
control of three-dimensional curing equipment have already been achieved, but still have
to be improved.
The development of UV curable coatings for exterior applications had been disregarded in
the past, since such coatings have to be stabilized with UV absorbers and radical
scavengers (HALS types) in order to provide enough long-term stability. This was due to the
preconception, that the UV induced radical polymerization could not be possible in the
presence of UV absorbers and radical scavengers. Since this prejudice has been disproved,
the whole field of exterior applications opened to UV coatings, which had seemed closed to
UV curing forever. Especially the high scratch resistance obtainable with UV cured coatings,
as proven in parquet flooring, has attracted the attention of automotive companies, which
are looking for coatings which can withstand the typical scratches resulting in car wash
units.
When thinking about curing of such complex geometries as available in car bodies
(doors, hoods) it is getting obvious that solutions have to be found to cure areas within
three-dimensional shapes, which are in the shadow of the exposure source. Dual cure
coatings for example are developed in order to cure also shadow areas of complex
threedimensional objects. They may use as a second functionality, besides the UV curing
chemistry, the complete range of available thermal curing chemistries, like isocyanates (in
combination with hydroxyl-functional compounds, known as 2 component PU systems) or
carbamate groups (curable with melamine chemistry, known as 1 C coatings). The problem
of curing in shadow areas has also been tackled from the equipment side, which resulted in
the development of UV curing in a plasma chamber or under inert conditions.
Further improvements have to be achieved in order to overcome the oxygen inhibition
effect, which leaves a tacky surface, unless very intense radiation or other measures are
employed. This effect is caused by the high reactivity of oxygen with radical species and the
formation of an unreactive peroxy radical, which does not continue the curing chain
reaction. Therefore, the cross-linking reaction and the formation of a solid network are
retarded until all oxygen is consumed. Since the use of high energy density radiation is
undesirable several alternative measures will be discussed.
The discussion of tackling the drawbacks of UV technology, the evaluation of structure
property relationships, relating mainly to mechanical and scratch resistant properties,
constitutes the basis for understanding the advantages of using this technology for
exterior,especially for automotive and industrial applications.

The economical and ecological benefits of UV curable coatings often appear when
thequestion arises which coating system should be chosen in order to coat a specific
surface area and different coating alternatives may be considered. This is preferably done
by comparing the whole process of coating a substrate from cradle to grave with the
ecoefficiency method.

13.2 Application Areas of UV Curing Inks

13.2.1 UV Flexo Inks for Narrow Label PrintingGP : UV curable flexo inks suitable for use
in narrow web printing for label and packaging applications. Main substrates are Chromo
Paper, Metalized Papers, Metalized Films and Treated Plastics films.

13.2.2 UV Curable Low Migration Flexo Inks: Free from Banned PhotoInitiator like ITX
and Benzophenone and Free from High Skin Irritation Monomer like HDDA. Suitable for
Chromo Paper, Metalized Papers, Metalized Films and Treated Plastics films.

13.2.3 UV Curable flexo inks for Shrink sleeve: Suitable for Flexo Printing over PVC Films
for Heat Shrink applications.

13.2.4 UV LED Curable Flexo inks Highly suitable for printing over AlFoil for Pharma
Applications . Separate ink systems for 365 nm , 385nm and 395 nm UV LED Lamps

13.2.5 UV Wet Offset Inks for Met Substrates and PaperBoards : These type
of inks posses excellent ink/fount balance. For Packaging, commercials and labels printing.

13.2.6 UV Dry Offset Inks for Plastics For direct printing on plastic cups, plastic lids,
industrial plastic buckets, capsules, plastic beverage , dairy containers, cosmetic tubes and
tops

13.2.7 UV Dry Offset Inks for Metal Decoration: Great flexibility and resistance to
abrasion.Mainly used for aluminium cans for Soft Drinks , Deodorant cans and beverage
cans . For sheet printing on coated sheet metals

13.2.8 UV Screen Inks for Printing on HDPE Cans, Tags, Sign Board etc. :
Different ink systems for plastics, metal and glass applications.

14.

Chemistry of UV (Photoinduced) Curing Technology:

14.1 Principle of UV Curing:

Photoinduced curing can be realized as in the preparation of conventional linear polymers
by a step like process, as used in polyaddition and polycondensation reactions or by a chain
process occurring in polymerization reactions (Figure 2.3).
The photoinduced polyaddition technology has been for a long time the workhorse of
photoresist technology,2 for example, the crosslinking of resins was achieved by
photoinduced dimerization of cinnamates. This photodimerization is an example of a direct
photoreaction where every step of polymer built-up is initiated by an absorbed photon,
thus every single reaction step is dependent on the quantum yield of the photoreaction
(generally very much smaller than 1).
On the contrary, in polymerization reactions induced by light only the initiating step is
dependent on the photoreaction ( < 1). The photopolymerization reaction then is a chain
reaction, where one produced initiator radical can add up to several thousand monomer
units, thus the overall quantum yield of the total reaction is much bigger than 1. Whereas
the photoinduced radical polymerization is now the mainstream technology, the
photoinduced ionic curing reactions are not so well explored and developed, mainly due to
the lack of easily available photoinitiators. In recent years, considerable progress has been
made in the development of new cationic photoinitiators,3,4 however, there are only a few
anionic type photoinitiators described. The basic principles of curing and network
formation are similar in radical and cationic induced curing. The cationic curing has its main
advantages in the oxygen insensitive curing and in the good adhesion mainly to metals
achieved with the cationic curable epoxy systems. The cationic curing will be described
briefly in the section of the raw materials. The main focus will be placed on the
photoinduced radical polymerization.

14.2 Initiation of curing reaction:

The UV curing technology is based on the photoinitiated rapid transformation of a reactive
liquid formulation into a solid coating film. The initiating species may be a cation, an anion
or a radical. The vast majority of UV curable coatings are based on radical producing
photoinitiators.
The main components of such formulations based on radical polymerizations are:
Reactive resins containing a plurality of polymerizable double bonds, which govern mainly
the desired properties of the final coating;
Copolymerizable, monomeric diluents, which are responsible for the reduction or
adjustment of the viscosity of the formulation, a function taken by the solvent in
conventional formulations;
Photoinitiators or a photoinitiating system containing photoinitiator and
photosensibilizer or coinitiators; and, if necessary, other coating additives, like surface
active additives, slip additives,fillers, pigments, light stabilizers, etc.
The chemistry involved in the radical initiated UV induced crosslinking can be divided into
the three steps, initiation, propagation and termination. Although the UV energy applied in
photocuring may cleave CC and CH bonds, the commonly used monomers do not
produce sufficient amounts of initiating species, which is due to low absorbance and poor
cleavage efficiency. Thus, a special photoinitiator is usually applied, which is excited and
ultimately yields via intersystem crossing, accompanied by various deactivation reactions,
the formation of a radical species, which can initiate radical polymerization. The following
polymerization reaction follows almost exactly the rules of conventional radical
polymerization. Thus, only the initiation step is different to thermal initiated radical
polymerization. The basic principles of photoinitiation, photopolymerization and
photocuring are described in detail in a book edited by Fouassier.
The light absorption and the following processes are commonly pictured in a Jablonski
diagram (Figure)The process starts with the absorption of a photon by the photoinitiator
molecule, which results in excitation of an electron into higher singlet states. From these
excited states, various processes can follow. First, deactivation can proceed by
radiationless internal conversion and evolution of heat back to the ground state or by
emission of fluorescence. Second, by intersystem crossing (ISC) an electron spin inversion
leads to the excited triplet state. The photochemical processes which lead to the desired
active species (e.g., free radicals) often take place from the excited triplet state, where the
molecule posses two unpaired electrons, rather than from the singlet state. The formation
of the reactive species, namely free radicals, competes with further deactivation processes,
like monomer quenching, oxygen quenching and phosphorescence. The direct oxygen
quenching of the photoinitiator excited states is not very likely in the case of the extremely
shortlived triplet states of -cleavable type photoinitiators, but much more pronounced in
the hydrogen abstraction type owing to the relatively long-lived triplet states.7 From the
triplet state two main reactions can lead to initiating species, the intramolecular scission of
an -bond, or the intermolecular abstraction of a hydrogen atom. The intramolecular
scission is the most effective process in the formation of radicals, since the hydrogen

abstraction is a bimolecular type reaction, which is diffusion controlled and may be

accompanied by several deactivation reactions.
The quantum yield of initiation, representing the number of growing chains per photon
absorbed reflects the importance of the processes leading to initiation over all the
indicated processes of deactivation.
The efficiency of the photoinitiation is a function of different quantum yields, since
several side reactions can occur in every step. Thus, the overall yield of initiation is a
complex function of different quantum yields, represented exemplarily in Figure

Examples of photoinitators, an alpha type scission initiator and a hydrogen abstraction type
photoinitiator are shown in Figure

14.3 Propagation
Propagation is the key step to very efficient curing, since it is a chain reaction where for
instance one produced radical can add more than 1000 monomer units within a fraction of
a second. The steps after the initiation are very similar to the normal radical polymerization
of monofunctional monomers, which are widely used to synthesize thermoplastic
polymers, like polyethylenes, polypropylene or polystyrenes. The main difference in
coating systems is the use of multifunctional monomers or oligomers, which,leads to the
formation of networks.

In the propagation reaction transfer reactions also often play a significant role, where the
growing radical chain does not add to another monomer unit, but abstracts hydrogen

radical from a neighbouring RH group. The remaining Rradical can then start another
growing chain, thus leading to the termination of the growing polymer chain, but not to the
termination of the chain reaction. The reaction of the radicals with oxygen does not play a
significant role in the polymerizations of linear polymers, since they are normally
conducted under inert conditions. However, the curing of coatings is normally performed
under atmospheric conditions, thus, the oxygen interference plays a major role.

14.4 Termination

The termination reactions are also manifold .Besides the termination with an initiator
radical, several other termination reactions play a role, especially the recombination of
growing radical species or elimination reaction of the chain end.

15.

Testing and QC for UV Inks

When it comes to manufacturing any product, being able to consistently meet

specifications is absolutely essential to success. Such is also the case with printing ink, as
testing and quality control (QC) play significant roles in the manufacturing process.
Ultraviolet (UV) inks are a major growth area for ink companies. While they share many
similarities to conventional inks, UV inks are cured by radiation, and as a result, they have
ingredients
and
properties
that
differ
from
conventional
inks.
For ink companies, understanding these differences and having strict controls on quality
and testing ensures that their own customers will receive the best possible products.

Importance of Testing in UV Inks :

To test UV inks, it is important to study how the ink cures in the lab. That requires ink
manufacturers to create similar operations on a laboratory scale to what their customers
are using.
The most important factor in testing UV inks is developing a test procedure that simulates
curing of the actual production equipment (UV lamp and set-up), said Dr. Scot Pedersen,
project manager for energy cure inks (UV/EB) at Color Converting Industries. Once the
comparable cure procedure is established, it is expected that all the other physical
properties will fall in line. This requires adjusting lab-curing parameters to closely mimic the
press cure conditions.
As for conventional inks, end-use applications govern the specifications UV inks need
to
meet.
The most important aspect is to consistently measure performance parameters of the
ink that relate to the needs of customers, said Glenn Webster, Sun Chemicals
marketing manager, UV inks. The tolerance of the manufacturing process has to meet
with the customers process window. This includes not only the printer, but also his
customers process and end-use needs as well. Measurements must be consistent from
one location to another.

16.

Future of the Printing ink Manufacturing Industry

The environmental and health problems caused by the inks Containing volatile organic
compounds (VOCs) call for new solutions in printing chemistry and technology .One of the
approaches may be hot melt. It refers to ink, which is solid at ambient temperature and
liquid at the time of printing. Such inks contain no VOCs to be trapped in the ink film or to
produce VOCs. In 1990s, the European Technical Committee for Printing Inks of CEPE
(European Technical Committee for printing inks and Artists Color Manufacturers Industry)

published a guideline paper on health and safety. Since then energy curing products have
gained significant growth both in coatings and printing techniques. The major energy
curing processes are used: UV and EB (Ultra violet lamps and Electron Beam). Energy curing
technology is important in the production of all types of printing applications where fast
drying, durability and high gloss finish make them sustainable for immediate use, e.g.
carton printing Food and pharmaceutical packaging, labels plastic substitutes and metal
decoration. Another development area of immense interests Development of water based
UV systems. Water is ideally suited to reduce the viscosity of ink systems. However, the
main problem with water UV system is that it is inevitable to remove water completely
before UV curing. Water based flex inks are being used in Naplan printing inks [NPI]. NPIs
were initially formulated using petroleum-based materials. However, they left an offensive
odor on printed substrates. Some printers used glycol (water washable inks) to over come
the drawbacks .The ultimate solution was the use of water based flex inks, which apart
from being odor freehand several other advantages. Rising petrochemical crisis and
environmental concerns draw attention to vegetable oil based inks. Although vegetable oils
have been used in inks for many years, the first soy bean oil based ink were developed in
1985 and were marketed in 1987.Soy inks now make up at least one third of the colored
newspaper ink. Soy ink contains less VOC, less alcohol and can be washed up without
solvent. Their disadvantages include their high cost compared to conventional link as well
as their disposal. For the present, UV and EB cured ink technology continues to develop.
Efforts are being directed towards the use of water-based inks. Key uses presently remain
in the development of vegetable oil containing inks using UV and EB cure technologies in
the world of printing inks.

**************

17.

References

1. Printing meets Litho: Soft approaches to high resolution patterning: B.Michel,

A.Bernard, A.Bitesh, E.Dalamache, M.Geissla, D.Junchery, J.P.Renaut, H.Rothizer,
H.Schimdt, P.Schmidt, R.Stutz, H.Wolf in IBM Journal of Research & Development
Vol 45, No., 8, 2001
2. Chemical & Engineering News, The Newsmagazine of the Chemical World Online
November 16,1998, Volume 76, Number 46, CENEAR 76 46 1-56, ISSN 0009-2347
3. Joy T. Kunjappu, Essays in ink chemistry. New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2001
4. Kirth-Othmer, Encyclopaedia of Chemical Technology (3rd Edition), V.13 (374-397) &
V.19 (110-175), Wiley & Sons, New York, 1981
5. L.M.Larsen, Industrial Printing Inks, New York, Reinhold Publishing Company, 1962
6. The Printing Ink Manual (5th Edition), R.H.Leech and R.J.Pierce (eds) London:
Blueprint, 1993
7. Chemical technology in printinmg and imaging systems J.A.G. Drake (ed)
Cambridge:RSC, 1993

Web Referemces:
www.pneac.org/print processes/flexography
www.pneac.org/print processes/letterpress
www.pneac.org/print processes/screen
www.pneac.org/print processes/gravure
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/letterpress
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/serigraphy
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/rotogravure
Modern Technology of Printing & Writing Inks, NIIR Board, Code-N175, Asia Pacific
Business NIIR.org