Light curing technology is a kind of technology which uses light as energy and decomposes photoinitiator to produce active species such as free radicals or ions. These active species initiate monomer polymerization and make it rapidly convert from liquid to solid polymer. Due to its low energy consumption (1 / 5 to 1 / 10 of thermal polymerization), high speed (several seconds to tens of seconds to complete the polymerization process), no pollution (no solvent volatilization), etc Point is called green technology.
At present, China has become one of the largest application countries of photopolymer materials, and its development in this field has attracted international attention. In today's increasingly serious environmental pollution, it is very important to develop pollution-free and environmentally friendly photopolymerization technology. According to statistics, about 20 million tons of hydrocarbons are released to the atmosphere every year, most of which are organic solvents in coatings. The organic solvents emitted into the atmosphere during the coating manufacturing process account for 2% of the coating production, and the organic solvents volatilized during the coating application process account for 50% ~ 80% of the coating production. In order to reduce pollution emissions, UV curable coatings are gradually replacing the traditional heat curable coatings and solvent based coatings.
With the continuous progress of UV curing technology, its application field will be gradually expanded. The early UV curing technology was mainly used in coatings, because the problem of light penetration and absorption in the colored system could not be solved at that time. However, with the development of photoinitiators and the improvement of light source power, UV curing technology can gradually meet the needs of different ink systems, and UV curing ink has developed rapidly. In recent years, with the continuous progress of UV curing technology, it can penetrate into other fields. Due to the progress of basic research, the understanding of the basic mechanism of UV curing is more in-depth, and the change of social environment will also put forward new requirements for UV curing technology, so the UV curing technology can be innovated and developed.
