UV ink market status

UV ink application in different fields

UV inks can be divided into two major categories from use: UV printing inks and UV printed circuit board inks. Currently, UV printing inks for the printing industry are used in various printing fields such as offset printing, letter printing (including flexographic printing), gravure printing, screen printing, and inkjet printing. UV printing circuit board inks are mainly used in circuit boards in the electronics industry. (PCB) printing.

1. Offset UV ink

The use of UV inks for offset printing eliminates dusting, facilitates the cleaning of the printing environment, and avoids the troubles caused by powder spraying to post-press processing, such as the effects on coating and film coating, and can be used for connection. Processing.

UV ink can also prevent ink crusting, which solves the worries of the offset machine when it stops, and at the same time it can increase the drying speed. Especially in the packaging and printing, it is often necessary to print a large area on the ground, requiring a higher density, and therefore have to increase the amount of ink, then the ink drying problem becomes very important, often because the ink is not easy to dry and affect the printing Productivity. With UV inks, this problem is easily solved.

UV inks are brightly colored and have excellent abrasion resistance, making them ideal for packaging and book cover printing.
UV inks do not penetrate when cured and can be printed on non-absorbent substrates, such as card printing. This is an area where ordinary offset inks cannot be covered.

In addition, offset UV inks are also widely used in direct mail, business forms and other ticket printing. In foreign countries, the largest market for UV inks is offset UV inks.

2. Letterpress UV ink

Toppan printing UV ink is mainly used for label printing, but also for packaging printing, such as hose printing.
In flexo printing, especially in narrow flexographic printing, people pay more attention to less downtime, more friction resistance, and better print quality. With UV ink printing product network with high resolution, small dot gain, bright ink, compared with water-based ink printing to improve a grade. UV inks have broad prospects for development.

At present, most flexographic printing presses are equipped with UV curing devices, and there are many types.

3. Gravure printing UV ink

In the field of gravure printing, UV inks have been selectively used, but the technology and cost have been correspondingly increased. With the growing demand for environmental protection and the increasingly stringent requirements for the safety of packaging printed materials, especially food packaging, UV inks will become a trend in the development of gravure printing inks.

4. Screen printing UV ink

The advantage of UV ink in screen printing is very obvious, because it can only be cured under UV light, it will not produce a headache blocking problem on the screen, and the curing speed is fast, and the troubled wire is solved well. The net printing industry has long been incompatible with the speed of ink drying and blocking.

The thicker ink layer of the screen printing material is difficult to dry. If there is no drying device, it is difficult for the printing material to accumulate, and it is very difficult to achieve high-speed printing. With UV ink, all this is solved. For example, in the printing of optical discs, all UV inks are used to improve the production efficiency.

The use of some decorative UV ink printing in screen printing can produce some special effects to achieve the decoration of the printed surface. These special effects are difficult or impossible to achieve with other printing methods. Only screen printing + UV ink can be achieved. At present, the commonly used UV inks are the following types: Screen printing UV imitation metal etching ink, screen printing UV wrinkle ink, screen printing UV coral ink, screen printing UV ice printing ink, screen printing UV refraction ink, screen printing UV crystal line ink Wait.

In addition, the combination of screen printing and gravure printing, flexographic printing, and offset printing presses is currently a trend in the development of printing presses, and screen printing units must use UV inks.

5.UV inkjet ink

In addition to the above-mentioned UV inks, a new type of ink, UV inkjet ink, is also worthy of attention. A new type of flat panel inkjet printer using piezoelectric nozzle technology is strongly promoting the application of UV curing technology to inkjet inks. In addition, piezoelectric showerhead technology is also used today in hybrid printers and stand-alone machines. These new areas of use of inkjet inks provide a development opportunity for UV inks, which is expected to reach the current scale of screen printing.

The advantage of UV inkjet ink is that it not only has the advantages of traditional UV technology in economy and technology, but also has outstanding advantages in use and operation, mainly in the following points.

(1) There is no volatile organic compound.
(2) Low energy demand.
(3) Fast curing.
(4) Suitable for a variety of soft and hard substrates.
(5) No curing before UV lamp irradiation.
(6) Do not block the nozzle and do not clean the nozzle.
(7) The ink composition is stable.
(8) Good print quality and resistance, such as abrasion resistance, water resistance, and light resistance.
(9) No ink wastage.
Therefore, UV inkjet inks are currently developing very fast, and have a great tendency to replace traditional inkjet inks.

6.UV Printed Circuit Board Ink

In the production process of the circuit board, there is one called this printed circuit board. UV inks used in printed circuit boards include: UV inks for resist (including plating), UV inks for solder resist, and UV inks for character marks, all of which are printed by screen printing.

Foreign UV Ink Development

The development of foreign UV inks is very fast. In the United States, the largest market for UV inks is offset printing, which accounts for about 40% of the market. Followed by screen printing (30%), the growth in the 1990s was particularly strong, becoming one of the preferred technologies for optical disc manufacturing. Figure 1 shows the growth trend of UV inks in North America in recent years. Of course, the United States occupies a dominant position in this market. Table 1 shows the market size of UV inks in North America in 2000. European 2000 UV ink products totaled 20,500 tons. The Asian UV ink market started late compared to Europe and the Americas, but the growth rate is not low. Among the Asian countries, Japan has the largest market share. Table 2 shows the market size of Japan's UV inks in 2000 and 2001.

Domestic UV ink development

Although the domestic UV ink market started late, it has been thriving in recent years with the sustained rapid growth of the domestic economy. According to the inaccurate statistics of the China Photographic Society's Radiation Curing Committee, UV ink production reached 6,514 tons in 2003, an increase of 64.2% over 2002 (as shown in Table 3), with an output value of 441.13 million yuan, an increase of 55.7% over 2002. Among them, offset printing UV inks, photoimaging resist inks, optical imaging solder mask inks, optical disc inks and other high-grade ink production have greatly increased. Since domestic UV inks have a low starting point and UV inks are favored by the industry, domestic UV inks will have better market prospects and will achieve rapid development in the coming years.

Source: Printing Technology