At present, LED-UV curing technology has attracted much attention in the European ink market and is becoming a mainstream curing technology. With outstanding technical advantages, the European LED-UV curing market has shown rapid growth in the past two years, and the application field continues to expand.
Outstanding advantage
LED-UV curing technology has the following advantages.
(1) The application of many substrates is limited because the heat generated by mercury lamps used in conventional curing techniques causes wrinkles, shrinkage, and even burning of materials. In contrast, LED-UV curing technology uses LEDs as The light source does not generate infrared radiation, and can maintain the low temperature while ensuring the curing energy, so it can be applied to the curing of more printing materials, especially heat sensitive materials such as plastic film; and, without the need for conventional curing Configure the chill roll.
(2) LED-UV inks with higher pigment content can produce higher-color printing effects
(3) LED-UV curing lamps have a longer service life than mercury lamps, and their performance does not decrease with time.
(4) More than 90% of the light source energy of the LED-UV curing light source can be utilized, and the energy efficiency is higher. Recently, some LED-UV curing system manufacturers have further increased the output power of the equipment. For example, the integration system introduced by British Integration Technology has a wavelength of 395 nm and an output power of 12 W/cm2.
(5) Low energy costs. According to printers using LED-UV curing systems, the energy consumption of LED-UV curing systems can be reduced by 70% compared to conventional UV curing systems.
At present, LED-UV curing technology can replace the traditional UV curing technology with 130 years of application history, which makes the future development trend of traditional UV curing technology in the European curing market become less clear, and the industrial application of mercury will also be affected by the European Union. Restrictions on environmental and safety related regulations.
continue to innovate
As the market continues to pay more attention to LED-UV curing technology, in recent years, ink manufacturers have also increased the research and development of LED-UV inks, and constantly develop and introduce new LED-UV inks to meet the rapid growth of LEDs. The demand for the UV curing market.
The president of Toyo Ink North America and COO John Copeland said: "In the past six or seven years, the market has been paying more attention to LED-UV inks. In Japan, many customers of Toyo Ink have installed LED-UV curing systems and achieved success. Recently, some customers in the United States have also begun to try LED-UV inks."
IdeOn is working hard to solve the problems associated with LED-UV curing technology. The main challenge is how to speed up the curing of inks and develop more new raw materials.
LED-UV curing technology can increase the curing speed of the ink by increasing the output power of the light source, and can also develop more application fields based on curing speed and single-pass technology. In view of this, Sun Chemical is constantly striving to expand the application scale of LED-UV curing technology in inkjet printing and to develop a full range of LED-UV curing solutions for wide format printing, labeling and industrial printing.
At present, LED-UV is gradually becoming a mainstream curing technology. The European International Label Exhibition is the best proof. In 2011, only 10 LED-UV curing systems were exhibited, and the number of related equipment exhibited in 2013 was increased. To 78 units, it has achieved nearly 8 times growth. In terms of ink types, there were very few ink types that could adapt to LED-UV curing technology in 2006, and in 2013 more than 20 ink and material suppliers could provide mature LED-UV curing inks.
In 2013, the label industry also awarded awards to manufacturers who have demonstrated outstanding performance in the field of LED-UV curing. Among them, Flint Group won the “Global Innovation Award†for its Ekocure LED-UV curing technology and McAndy's auxiliary ProLED ink curing technology. Application development
In recent years, LED-UV curing technology has gradually matured and has been expanded to many printing fields. Among them, digital printing is the market field with the highest acceptance of LED-UV curing technology. In addition, as the production capacity and performance of LED-UV curing inks continue to increase, the flexo and screen printing markets are rapidly absorbing this technology, and LED-UV curing inks will gradually be adopted in the offset printing field.
With the application of LED-UV curing technology in the field of screen printing, it can now be applied to the printing of shrink wrap, ultra-thin film, aluminum foil, composite materials, plastics, cardboard and glass. The wider the range of substrates, the more personalized LED-UV curing technology, which poses a higher challenge for ink manufacturers, the need to develop suitable inks for a variety of uses, but also strengthen the LED- UV curing system suppliers work closely with ink manufacturers.
In addition, new resins, monomers, oligomers and photoinitiators are being successfully developed. In addition to being used in inks, LED-UV curing technology can be widely used in coatings and adhesives. In particular, LED-UV flexo inks have been developed to provide a more flexible solution for flexo printing. Initially, the biggest obstacle to the application of LED-UV curing technology in flexo inks was cost, but this has changed with the development of semiconductor technology.
Not only that, LED-UV curing technology has shown rapid growth in the fields of Braille printing, composite materials, displays, electronics and so on.
Future prospects
There are indications that LED-UV curing technology is moving from niche to high volume in the European market. For example, in high-volume sheetfed printing, LED-UV curing ink can take full advantage of its high color strength.
French market research firm YoleDeveloppement said in a recent survey report that LED-UV curing technology will increase the global LED-UV curing market during 2012-2017 with its low investment cost, compact structure and environmental protection. Six times the market value will increase from $45 million to $270 million. This is equivalent to a compound annual growth rate of 43%, which is four times higher than the growth rate of traditional curing systems.
In the future, LED-UV curing systems will be developed towards miniaturization and even portable, and new market segments will open the door for LED-UV curing technology. In 2012, traditional UV curing systems accounted for 90% of the UV curing market. It is expected that LED-UV curing systems will account for one-third of the global UV market in the next three years. In Europe, this market is likely to be even higher as the market tends to be niche and the market demand for energy consumption is reduced.
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