Coloured and Tinted Lacquers - The Next Step to Take for Radiation-Curable and Waterborne Binders

During recent years VOC regulations in Europe keep the wood coating industry moving from classical technologies, e.g. solventborne 2K polyurethane and acid catalysed cure of melamine resins, to modern technologies, such as 100% and waterborne radiation-curable resins. Among these modern systems waterborne radiation-curable resin based on polyurethane acrylates (wb UV-PUD) seem to be the most promising to become the replacement technology for wood coatings in the next decade: Based on polyurethane chemistry they benefit from outstanding chemical resistances, balanced physical properties and a huge chemical toolbox to address various applications. Being waterborne they are low on VOC and are perfectly suited for spray applications and, furthermore, the radiation cure makes them extremely fast and overall cost-efficient in their application. Having started from wood clearcoats wb UV-PUDs nowadays are spreading out to new applications, such as outdoor wood, PVC flooring, plastic consumer goods, mineral, paper and glass.[1-2]