RadTech 2024 Sustainability Award Winners Selected

RadTech has selected its RadTech 2024 Sustainability Award honorees. Their pioneering use of ultraviolet and electron beam (UV+EB) technologies leads the way for sustainable and responsible manufacturing practices.

These leading companies have demonstrated various benefits, including energy savings, CO2 reductions, minimized water usage, and a significant decrease in VOC and hazardous air pollutant emissions. They’ve also streamlined supply chains, reduced transportation costs, and slashed waste through recyclability and material substitution.

RadTech will celebrate their achievements and UV+EB’s pivotal role in sustainable manufacturing during RadTech 2024, May 20 to 22 in Orlando, FL.

The following are this year’s honorees:

• Avery Dennison Corporation: Avery Dennison has developed innovative and more sustainable UV-cured adhesives (UV WarmMelt), replacing solvent-based adhesives without compromising performance.

The main advantage of UV WarmMelt adhesive technology over traditional UV HotMelt and solvent-based adhesives, is its extremely low levels of VOCs and odors. Since they are made without solvents or other potentially hazardous process aids, they are a particularly good fit for applications in strict regulatory environments, such as medical, automotive, or home and personal care applications.

• MacDermid Graphics Solutions: MacDermid Graphics Solutions produces photopolymer printing plate precursors for the flexographic printing industry, which are subsequently UV cured and processed by customers.

MacDermid has developed a process to collect and repurpose used printing plates, after printing,  into various end products. The end products can include a wide variety of foam-based applications, such as construction, matting applications (carpet, anti-fatigue applications) ceiling panels, and many more. 

• Cypris Materials, Inc.: Cypris’ patented copolymer technology eliminates the need for the most polluting component of colored coatings: pigments and dyes. CYPRIS structural color eliminates complex manufacturing processes and supply chain logistics while catching the consumer’s eye with never-before-seen color effects.

Cypris prioritized UV curable coatings as its first commercial application to offer customers the lowest possible cradle-to-grave carbon footprint option.  Recent LCA (Lifecyle Assessment) analysis demonstrates that CYPRIS structural color copolymer has one-fifth the carbon emissions of organic pigments.  UV/EB curable coating technology in conjunction with CYPRIS copolymer offers the lowest carbon footprint coating option. CYPRIS structural color copolymers are 50% plant based, making them more sustainable than petroleum-based pigments and dyes.

• allnex: allnex collaborated to develop a customized UV-curable resin for 3D-printed homes with Mighty Buildings, an innovative California company that uses 3D printing technology to manufacture sustainable and climate-resilient high-quality homes. 

In this sustainability-focused partnership, allnex provides the materials Mighty Buildings uses to print the predesigned parts that are then assembled in progressive kit-of-parts construction to build homes onsite. Since the walls are built layer-by-layer from the ground up, they must be cured more or less instantly to ensure proper workflow, as enabled by UV cured resins.

• Allied UV: Allied UV process solutions allow North American manufacturers to replace solvent-based and water-based coating solutions with 100% solids UV solutions, with no VOCs or HAPs. These coatings provide corrosion protection for mechanical tubing, safety sprinkler pipe, OCTG line pipe and many other metal/other substrates.