Advantages and pitfalls for UV LED cure applications

UV LED is becoming more important in various application fields due to the low energy consumption, the lower heat generation and the flexibility in equipment design. However, as a consequence of the lower energy output and the emission in a narrow bandwidth around 395nm, classical formulations are not showing the same performance as when they are cured with standard UV lamps. To get the right coating performance and productivity, formulations and photo-initiator systems must be aligned with the UV LED lamp output. This paper shows the recent developments in resin design and formulations for UV LED cure that allow to obtain good coating properties in combination with good cure speed.