Reducing Energy Use and Optimizing Performance Through UV LED Printing
- Published: September 30, 2024
By: Derrick Hemmings, Product Manager, Screen, Energy Curable Flexo, LED North America, Sun Chemical
Environmental regulations are increasing pressure on the printing industry to exceed their sustainability goals. To comply with the most up-to-date legislation, brand owners and converters must work with suppliers who prioritize sustainable production.
Maintaining success and competitive relevance in the market now requires printers to integrate sustainable initiatives into their product development to promote a circular economy and help their customers meet their own sustainability targets.
In addition to sustainability targets, environmental groups and non-governmental organizations are working to implement stricter environmental regulations, like extended producer responsibility legislation and bans on single-use plastic. Suppliers, converters and brand owners must work together to transition from traditional products and technology that contribute significantly to landfill to methods that benefit the environment, improve recyclability and reduce waste.
While this transition can be costly and time-consuming, in certain segments like energy curable printing, sustainable options are widely accessible and able to be integrated with older systems without compromising performance.
This conversion in the printing market from standard UV mercury lamps to UV LED-curing systems is growing. Suppliers like Sun Chemical are working to ensure that their products are compatible across a range of systems so the transition to UV LED is accessible enough to help printers meet industry regulations for sustainability.
The Sustainability Benefits of UV LED Inks for Energy Curable Printing
As a sustainable leader in the printing and packaging industry, Sun Chemical has been a longtime proponent of UV LED printing. With sustainable initiatives guiding all segments of business development, Sun Chemical uses a ‘5R’ approach of Reuse, Reduce, Renew, Recycle and Redesign to prioritize sustainability and promote circularity.
Sun Chemical’s energy curable offerings include SunWave UV LED curing sheetfed offset inks and SolarWave flexo inks for UV LED printing, both of which can be used with standard mercury-vapor lamps or with LED lamps.
Even though UV LED inks have been used in commercial, narrow web, flexible packaging and offset markets for many years, printers and converters still hold certain misconceptions about their capabilities. For instance, there is a common belief that UV LED inks are only compatible with LED lamps, making it difficult for printers with traditional lamp systems to transition to LED.
However, most (maybe all) UV LED inks are dual-curing and cure under both traditional UV lamps and LED lamps. Because Sun Chemical has optimized SunWave and SolarWave for maximum UV LED performance, printers have an easier time transitioning from conventional mercury UV lamps to the more sustainable LED lamps which have historically given varying levels of performance.
A highlight of the SolarWave range is the SolarWave CRCL series which exhibits a wide range of brilliant and high performing colors and was designed to enhance packaging recyclability by enabling excellent adhesion without primers, resulting in a washable, de-inking or retentive system, depending on specific application requirements.
Washable inks contribute impactfully toward effective recycling, as they are formulated to enable rapid and effective filtration during wastewater processing to afford clear wash solutions and clean plastic flakes. SolarWave CRCL inks utilize a Nestlé-compliant, low migration system and are compatible for high speed printing with many different substrates. They were recently formally recognized as meeting or exceeding voluntary recyclability requirements published by the Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR), demonstrating Sun Chemical’s continuous commitment to providing consumers with products that can help them achieve their sustainability goals.
Another major sustainable advantage of the SunWave and SolarWave series is the energy savings they provide. Printers can benefit from significant energy savings when converting from standard curing lamps to LED-curing lamps due to their longer shelf-life and resulting lower cost of maintenance.
The ability to run lightweight and heat-sensitive substrates are further pushing demand for LED systems. In addition to energy savings, when using LED lamps, printers do not have to wait for the lamps to cool down or heat up, which leads to time savings. LED lamps do not produce ozone emissions, do not use mercury, limit the use of reflectors and, unlike mercury lamps, do not gradually deteriorate, which ensures optimized performance over time. However, as with mercury lamps, LED lamps must be kept clean to maximize their performance, which is easier to achieve with low-misting inks, like SunWave.
Meeting the Demands for Sensitive Packaging
Demand for LED solutions for primary and secondary packaging in the food industry is growing. Increasing demand for UV and LED inks in the food packaging market may be buoyed by the trend of LED curing under nitrogen which also results in lower migration by reducing the photoinitiator level.
Another factor influencing demand for LED in the food packaging market and other sensitive packaging markets like pharmaceuticals, is the ability to run heat-sensitive substrates. The cure consistency and print repeatability enabled by LED lamps make them especially compatible with sensitive packaging.
The transition from standard UV to UV LED printing is an important part of helping the printing industry adapt to dynamic environmental regulations and legislation. As an industry supplier partner, Sun Chemical has helped spur the widespread accessibility of UV LED printing across many market segments to enable brand owners and converters to meet their sustainability goals and help meet the needs of their customers. To learn more about sustainable solutions for UV LED printing, visit www.sunchemical.com/UVLED.
With 40 years of experience in the graphic arts industry, Derrick Hemmings is a product manager of screen, energy curable flexo and LED in North America at Sun Chemical. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
