UV ink market share forecast

The use of UV-curable inks and coatings began in the 1970s. Now the printing industry has a large market share, including applications in lithography, flexographic printing, letterpress printing, etc., the only ones that cannot be used in rotary photocopying. The main reason for this is that rotary photocopying requires the ink to have low tackiness, which limits the use of UV curable inks. It is predicted that by 2005, the market for UV-curable inks will increase from US$1.1 billion in 2001 to US$1.5 billion. In the United States, the value of the printing industry using UV inks and coatings is approximately $150-200 million per year, and the amount of ink and paint used is roughly equal. Of course, the extent of growth depends on the development of the branch market. The annual growth rate ranges from 4 to 20%, and the growth rate of most companies can reach 7 to 12%. Some areas, such as inkjet printing, screen printing, and In areas such as flexo printing, due to the current low market share, the growth rate is also relatively large and can reach 20%.
For the time being, offset offset printing accounts for the largest market share. It can apply UV-curable inks to the production of direct mail, business forms, folding cartons and credit cards. Narrow flexo printing has been used in a large number of UV inks and coatings, and most of the wide flexo printing has not been involved in this area, mainly because the wide flexo is mostly used to produce food packaging, many printers believe that UV inks and coatings may It affects people's health and cannot be applied to food packaging. However, FlintInk stated that they have made great progress in the development of odorless UV flexo inks that can be used in printed food packaging. In addition, in wide-format printing, expensive equipment and lack of user-friendliness have hindered the widespread use of UV inks and coatings. The application of UV technology in medium width printing equipment is relatively successful. Although there are still such problems, one thing is for sure. In the field of offset printing and flexo printing, the application of UV inks and coatings is increasing. This does not include gravure printing. In the field of gravure printing, UV technology has been selectively used, but the technology and cost have also increased accordingly.

At present, during the printing process of some labels and packaging cartons, UV and EB (electron beam) technologies are used for printing and coating. At the same time, UV coating is the main raw material in the production process of multilayer kraft paper bags. Energy-curing products are now entering every corner of the market and are of great economic importance. Mike, Marketing Manager at Sun Ink Co., said: "If the performance and quality characteristics of Energy-Curable (EC) products are not needed, there is no possibility for them to survive. To provide services to users at a lower cost.” Paul FlintInk’s technical manager, Paul, agrees: “The UV technology is suitable for such a large and low-cost industry as the packaging industry.”

Electron beam EB curing accounts for a market share of about 30 to 50 million US dollars, accounting for almost 13% of the entire energy curing market. Compared with UV-curable drying systems, EB equipment is expensive and covers an area that is relatively large, so the growth rate is relatively slow, although the price of equipment has decreased by a certain degree, from 1 million five years ago to 30. Million, but the chemical materials used have not changed, and they are still relatively expensive.

For flexo printing, especially for web flexo printing, UV inks have a broad prospect. Most flexo presses are equipped with UV devices and they come in many varieties. At the same time, in flexo printing, environmental protection is not the biggest problem. They pay more attention to less downtime, higher performance, higher friction resistance, better print quality, and more vivid colors. Flexo printing with UV ink gives better dot definition than water-based and solvent-based inks, and you don't have to use four-color inks like traditional printing. You can choose one, two, or More kinds of inks are printed without restriction. Because UV inks are more viscous than water-based inks, they tend to stick to the plate, so a clean environment is extremely important. If flexographic printing is to grow, new markets need to be developed. Therefore, UV flexo inks must meet market standards. UV flexo printing is competitive with offset printing on folding carton printing because it has an added on-line coating function and is favored. Especially for larger print jobs, it is easier to dry.