Price: 10.00
1. Introduction
The first patent for UV-cured printing ink was granted as longago as
1946. About the same time, General Electric was experimenting with
ionising radiation for curing solvent-free coatings.
The following thirty years were marked by occasionally rapid
developments, albeit not without setbacks, on the part of the chemical
industry and the designers of UV and EB curing equipment.
In Germany, it was Polymer-Physik that introduced the first electron
accelerator with thin lead plate shielding in 1976, at the first research and
technology exhibition within the framework of the Hannover Fair.
In 1980, the first electron accelerator was integrated into a Chambon
rotary offset machine. Today, about 300 low-energy electron accelerators
and about 30,000 UV facilities are in operation all over the world, for a
vast range of applications [1].
In 1990, the recorded consumption of radiation-curing offset printing inks
was 7,200 tons in Western Europe alone [2].
What importance do radiation-curing printing inks now have for the
various printing methods, and what are their principal differences from
conventionally drying printing inks?
