By: Derrick Hemmings, Product Manager, Screen, Energy Curable Flexo, LED North America, Sun Chemical

Across the printing industry, from brand owners to converters to suppliers, there is an ongoing, concerted effort for packaging to be sustainable and achieve circularity. Accordingly, there is intense focus on reducing emissions and waste, and helping packaging achieve recyclability or compostability.

This focus on sustainability has led to the growing popularity of LED printing among a wide range of markets. UV LED curing lamps do not emit ozone, use no mercury, limit facility heat and exhaust, and have a long shelf life compared to traditional mercury-vapor UV lamps.

Since LED printing reduces energy usage compared to other curing alternatives, it is not surprising that demand has surged for LED curable inks that maintain high performance while meeting industry regulations for sustainability.

That being said, there are several common misconceptions about LED curable inks in the industry. Many converters believe that LED curable inks can only be cured with LED lamps, while in reality virtually all LED inks can be cured by both LED lamps and traditional mercury-vapor UV lamps. LED lamps also tend to maintain better cure consistency.

A second misconception is that LED inks are not compatible with sensitive printing. However, given LED’s stable lamp power and resulting color consistency, as well as low odor and low migration, it offers excellent compatibility with sensitive printing as does mercury-vapor UV.

Addressing the Misconceptions about UV LED Inks

Sun Chemical has developed SolarWave, a range of UV LED flexo curing inks which enable environmentally friendly printing with lower energy consumption and costs.

The ink range features the SolarWave CRCL series to address major market needs for recyclability. SolarWave CRCL offers UV LED flexo curable inks in a recycle-friendly, wash-off deinking, retentive system.

With a full gamut of colors, SolarWave CRCL delivers striking hues without the need for a primer, reducing waste and print time. While most inks require a primer to properly adhere to the substrate, SolarWave CRCL inks adhere seamlessly without one, which means even for printers with a limited number of press units, SolarWave still enables adhesion in a way that increases sustainability.

SolarWave can be delivered through standard or unique dispensers onto a wide range of substrates, which can be pre-tested to confirm recyclability to comply with requirements of the Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR). Depending on the substrate used for printing, these inks can be washed off without discoloring the wash water or recyclate to maintain their recyclable properties.

Specifically designed for converters in the narrow web, tag and label and flexible packaging sectors, SolarWave CRCL has been designed for low migration, high speed printing. Whether for wide or narrow web printing and addressing the need for press speeds, SolarWave sustains high print performance. Its Nestlé-compliant, low-migration system is useful for converters needing high density and high anilox printing.

For brand owners, SolarWave’s central benefit is its sustainable properties. Reducing the amount of energy used during the printing process and complying with standards for recyclability, SolarWave CRCL is intended to help brand owners meet sustainability goals.

SolarWave is a clear example of Sun Chemical’s commitment to designing sustainable products that help customers meet industry regulations and align with the United Nations in its Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. By developing solutions like this, the hope would be to significantly reduce the plastic waste generated in the United States and the world.   

As printers explore ways to enhance sustainability in their processes and solutions for brand owners, UV LED curable inks will continue to see growth not just in the NWTL and flexible packaging markets, but from the commercial printing, screen printing and other packaging markets. It is important to partner with ink suppliers focused on developing sustainable ink technology that not only can lead to circularity but also maintain high performance while meeting industry regulations.

For other market segments that have been more reluctant to enter the UV LED realm, there is now a wide range of high-performing, versatile and environmentally friendly products they can use to meet their customers’ needs. 

About the author: Derrick Hemmings is a product manager of screen, energy curable flexo and LED in North America at Sun Chemical. He can be reached at [email protected].