Interview: “Significant Advancements Related to UV LED-Curing Equipment”
UV curing offers many advantages like faster cycle times, less use of energy and eco-friendliness. Kevin Joesel, director of sales, UVP, at Heraeus Noblelight America, talks about recent advancements in this technology.
How far has UV curing of paints and coatings advanced over the last few years?
Kevin Joesel: We continue to see significant advancements related to UV LED-curing equipment. For example, improved UV LED chip technology combined with improved optics are delivering higher UV-energy densities, opening new curing applications for UV LED-curable paint and coatings on wood, plastic, fiberglass composites and glass. Light weighting of products, from automotive parts to packaging, is driving the need for lower temperature curing, which is ideal for UV curing in general, but even more so for UV LED.
There is continuing interest in new, high-tech coating development including bio-based, smart, antimicrobial, and nano coatings for applications. UV curing is and should be considered integral to this development, given its advantages for the end user and the ease of applying UV-curable materials using traditional coating methods.
What are the advantages compared to other technologies?
Kevin Joesel, Heraeus Noblelight
Joesel: The primary advantages driving UV-curing adoption are economic and environmental benefits for the end user. The instantaneous cure of a UV-free radical reaction is many orders of magnitude faster than condensation reactions, the type used to cure traditional cross-linking coatings. So, UV-curing results in significantly faster cycle times, eliminating what is typically a major bottleneck (curing the coating) in a production process. UV curing uses less energy and it’s environmentally friendly with no, or very low, VOCs.
Additional advantages include better coatings properties such as adhesion and scratch resistance, and its low temperature enables curing coatings on heat sensitive substrates such as wood, plastic and assembled parts. UV LED curing offers the additional advantages of no ozone or mercury, even more energy savings, and less maintenance and downtime compared to traditional UV-curing technology.
What obstacles still need to be overcome?
Joesel: We need more formulators offering UV-curable coatings. We’ve seen a good start in recent years and are continuing to see more UV-curable paints, coatings, sealants, etc. We also need formulations specific to UV LED curing. Development and commercialization of new photoinitiators (PIs) and a broader array of materials for formulators is underway. In fact, you’ll see some new PIs and other raw materials specifically for UV LED coatings at this show.
Awareness and knowledge of UV curing by both formulators and end users is also not as widespread as it should be. There’s a lot of misinformation out there. Resources like the ChemQuest Technology Institute, a technology application and education center available to the coatings industry; RadLaunch, a technology accelerator program; and the Heraeus applications lab in Gaithersburg are examples of radiation cure industry partners working to increase knowledge and further new innovations in UV-curing technology.
Related content
Interview wits BASF expert Tunja Jung on radiation curing
Highly functional methacrylated bio-based resins for UV-curable coatings
