Analysis of UV/EB ink market
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It is estimated that sales in the US radiation curing inks and coatings market reached $360 million in 2002. Now, the ink market for UV-curable screen printing inks, offset inks, letterpress printing inks and narrow-format flexo inks has also achieved such great results.
In recent years, the printing ink industry in the United States has struggled with other industries to survive a difficult period. Radiation-cured inks are one of the areas of slow development.
Despite the bright prospects in this field, it does not escape the strong pressure of rising raw material prices. Recently, the severe shortage of acrylic acid has exposed problems in the supply of raw materials, which has had a certain negative impact on the stability of raw material prices. Last year, the prices of various raw materials rose to varying degrees. This price increase trend continues until this year. Therefore, we can foresee that fluctuations in raw material prices will have a negative impact on UV/EB products.
The most used areas for ultraviolet (UV) inks are carton and label printing. However, the current carton printing mainly uses offset ink, and the label printing uses narrow flexo printing. The use of UV gravure and UV wide flexo printing is minimal and almost negligible.
Composite presses that can use different UV printing methods are still favored by the industry.
The products printed by the free radical UV printing system have a certain odor, which has led some printers to switch to cationic UV inks and coatings when printing scent-sensitive flexible packaging. However, the use of cationic UV products is still inferior compared to traditional free radical UV products.
UV-curing digital inkjet is a star in the field of radiation-curable inks and coatings. This emerging technology will continue to grow rapidly. Although there has been a call for reducing the use of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and reducing energy consumption, printers' interest in UV-curable inkjets has increased. The author believes that this phenomenon is mainly caused by the following reasons:
Curing inkjets have a wider range of adhesions on substrates and can be applied to a wide variety of substrates.
UV-curable inkjets are more efficient and print faster than traditional water-based inkjet or solvent inkjets.
The UV-curing inkjet is stable in nature and does not block the ink nozzles.
Products that use UV-cured inkjet printing are more lustrous and less susceptible to fading.
Linked post-press operations such as embossing can be performed using UV-curable inkjet.
Advances in technology will continue to drive the rapid development of chemical and UV/EB applications. Undoubtedly, today's UV inks have less odor, better adhesion, and more stable color. High-intensity lamps and reflectors currently used to cure inks have better thermal control properties. New UV lamps with instant switching capabilities are also under development and will likely have some of the advantages of electron beam (EB) curing.
Photosensitive resins and oligomers absorb UV energy and promote photopolymerization, which greatly reduces the use of photoinitiators and saves printing costs.
Many printers today are not interested in new products unless they taste the sweetness of using new products. The price of UV/EB inks is minimal compared to higher production efficiencies.
The main benefit of using energy-curing inks and coatings is increased productivity. The advantages of fast printing speed, wide range of substrates, uniform color, and good visual effects are all important factors that promote the rapid development of UV/EB inks and coatings.
Although UV/EB materials are favored by environmentalists because they can reduce the solvent emissions of printing sources, the final use of this material in the food packaging industry will be a major event worthy of industry attention.
UV technology is mature, and printers are still waiting to see the long-awaited sales growth and cost reduction. However, the rise in raw material prices and the slow development of UV/EB inks have greatly delayed the price cuts. On the contrary, prices are likely to continue to rise. The instability of raw material prices will continue to have far-reaching effects in the near future.