What are the application characteristics of UV curable ink? Market potential analysis of UV curable ink

According to the latest market scale and forecast report of UV (ultraviolet curing) ink industry released by the authoritative market research organization Verified Market Research, in 2019, the global UV Ink market scale will be 1.83 billion US dollars, and it is expected to reach 3.57 billion US dollars by 2027, with a compound annual growth rate of 8.77% from 2020 to 2027.

Strong growth in demand for technological upgrading
A number of leading ink manufacturers confirmed this growth and put forward relevant statements. T&K Toka Group of Japan Co., Ltd. focuses on the production of UV ink, and it sees more opportunities for LED UV Ink. In the field of graphic art, the growth of switching from oily ink to UV ink has promoted the progress of printing art and helped to improve work efficiency and compatibility with various substrates. In the future, from the perspective of consumption reduction, the technology in the field of LED UV is expected to continue to be updated.
Fabian Cohen, global head of narrow product management of Shengweike, said that energy curing is still a strong growth application in the graphic arts industry, which further promoted the growth of the global UV ink and EB (Accelerated High Energy Electron Beam) ink market, especially in the fields of narrow label, sheet-fed printing and packaging. "The decline in the ink market in 2020 due to the COVID-19 epidemic and other uncertainties has been made up for in 2021." Cohen added that the demand for LED UV solutions in printing applications is expected to continue to grow in the future. Roland Schroeder, product manager of Europen Ink Group, pointed out that although LED UV sheet-fed offset printing can not meet the technical requirements at present, the UV sheet-fed offset printing for packaging of Europen Ink Group is growing strongly. "The reason for this situation is that the number of available photoinitiators is very small, and the absorption spectrum of LED is still very narrow." Schroeder said that the wider application can only be carried out in a limited scope. The European UV commercial printing market has been satisfied, and it is not expected that there will be any growth in this field at present. Jim Bishop, product manager of British Sun Chemical Co., Ltd., said that the market began to stabilize in mid-2021 after the COVID-19 epidemic led to the growth of large-scale energy-curing folding cartons in 2020. "According to the end use, the market growth is estimated to be around 2%." Bishop pointed out that although the shortage of some grades of paper and the supply of energy-curing raw materials make the situation complicated, it is worth noting that the conversion of traditional sheet-fed printing machines to UV and LED printing continues. In the past year, many new large-format, high-speed UV sheet-fed printers were installed in the North American market, and this trend is expected to continue with the strong productivity improvement brought by these new printers.

Six application characteristics of Uv Curable Ink
Compared with traditional Printing Ink, UV curable printing ink has the advantages of rapid curing and low energy consumption, and can be used for heat-sensitive substrates. The cured products have superior performance and belong to a green industrial technology with low VOC emission. Its application features are as follows
NO.1
The absence of volatile organic compounds (VOC) reduces the use of volatile organic compounds and energy consumption. Most UV products contain little or no organic solvents, and there will be no solvent erosion to damage printed matter and pollute human body and production environment.
NO.2
Can be used for paper substrates and non-paper substrates, can also be printed on ordinary substrates, and can also be printed on non-absorbent materials such as films, metals or plastics. The products printed by UV curing inkjet have better luster, are not easy to fade, have high production efficiency, and the printing speed is much faster than that by using traditional water ased inkjet or solvent inkjet. UV curing inkjet has stable properties and will not block the ink printing nozzle.
NO.3
It can be cured quickly after being irradiated by ultraviolet light, and has some advantages of electron beam (EB) curing.
NO.4
The amount of printing ink is small, because UV printing ink contains no solvent, so it only needs 1/3~1/2 of the amount of traditional printing ink to obtain the expected effect.
NO.5
Strong color matching ability, rich colors can be prepared by adjusting the viscosity, hue and lightness of ink, and a variety of pigments can be obtained by mixing two or more basic colors; UV printing ink has less peculiar smell, good viscosity and strong color stability.
NO.6
UV curable ink can absorb ultraviolet energy in photosensitive resin and oligomer, and promote photopolymerization, which reduces the use of photoinitiator and can effectively save printing cost.

What is the development of UV curable ink industry? Analysis of market potential of UV curable ink in 2024
At present, the photocuring process in China has been widely used in many fields of industrial departments, forming a value chain called "UV photocuring industry", which includes photocuring materials (raw materials and chemical formulations), processing equipment (UV light sources and curing devices) and photocuring processing technology. Raw materials and chemical formula products (such as coatings, inks and adhesives) constitute the material basis of photocuring process. In fact, the production and market of photocurable materials in China has become an important part of the global market. In recent years, almost all photocurable materials (except photoinitiators) in China have been growing continuously.
With the development of photocuring technology, more, better and newer photocuring products will be developed in this industry, and the application fields of photocuring technology will be wider and the market capacity will be larger and larger. The development of new photocurable products and the continuous expansion of application fields provide endless demand and good development prospects for the photoinitiator industry, which provides key raw materials for it.

UV curable ink has the characteristic of selective absorption of UV light. Drying is affected by the total energy radiated by UV light source and the energy distribution of light with different wavelengths. Under the irradiation of UV light, the photopolymerization initiator of UV ink absorbs photons with a certain wavelength and excites them into excited states to form free radicals or ions.
At present, the photocuring process in China has been widely used in many fields of industrial departments, forming a value chain called "UV photocuring industry", which includes photocuring materials (raw materials and chemical formulations), processing equipment (UV light sources and curing devices) and photocuring processing technology.

Because the proportion of UV curing products in China is still far lower than that in developed countries, and the development is not balanced, the UV curing technology in China has great application potential and market opportunities. At present, the most important task of the industry is still to continue to develop new technologies and materials and explore new market applications, such as composite materials and automotive coatings.