UV Printing Ink and its Application

Abstract

Over thirty years has passed since the ultra violet (UV) curing technologies became applicable to a printing ink. The domestic demand of the UV curable ink in 2012 is estimated approximately 11,000 tons, and the use of them has spread in varieties of printing areas including paper packaging, business forms, self-adhesive labels, and plastics, where the characteristics of the UV curable ink can be advantageous. In recent years, commercial printing jobs (newspaper insert, prints circulars, catalogs, etc.) which are ordinarily printed with conventional inks, started to adapt UV printing processes due to the high productivity of the system. There are many types of UV curable ink for each application and printing process. The UV curable inks are designed to meet the quality requirements by utilizing the varieties of raw materials and optimizing their combinations. The choice of resin materials in the ink formula is especially important as it decides the performance of the products. Adding, this paper introduces the latest topics of the UV curable printing industry such as 1) Environmentally friendly UV ink and 2) High reactivity UV ink.