David Savastano, Editor03.08.23
Energy curing has been one of the steadiest growth markets in the ink industry. There are plenty of reasons why the market has been successful; years ago, people cited the instant cure, which allows for faster processing, but the sustainability benefits and energy cost savings of UV and EB inks are of great interest today.
Ultraviolet (UV) and UV LED remain the largest portion of the market, with electron beam (EB) a smaller share. Anecdotally, UV LED is the fastest growing sub-section of the market. Overall, energy curable inks are a sizable business, with consultants placing overall sales at between $2 billion and $3 billion annually.
In terms of companies, UV/EB inks are produced by a wide range of manufacturers. All of the major international ink industry leaders are in the UV ink segment, and there are a few companies – T&K Toka and Zeller+Gmelin – that are primarily focused on energy curable inks and coatings.
In speaking with industry leaders, the UV ink business was solid again in 2022, with more good news on the way. Niklas Olsson, global director product & commercial excellence, Narrow Web at Flint Group, noted that market intelligence suggests the market for energy curing technology is stable with some minor growth, while Hideyuki Hinataya, GM of the Overseas Ink Sales Division at T&K Toka, reported that power-saving UV printing is growing continuously in 2022, partly due to a switch from
conventional printing.
Ed Dedman, flexo technical support/product manager for Zeller+Gmelin Corp., said that overall, the energy curing inks market remained strong in 2022.
“Sales were somewhat impacted by raw material availability, but we were able to push through and maintain a strong sales and supply position,” Dedman reported.
Alexander Blasek, global project manager UV flexo at hubergroup, noted that in 2022, the global UV flexo market remained stable with a slight positive trend.
“Also at the beginning of 2023, we see that this positive trend continues,” added Blasek. “We expect the market for UV flexo applications to further grow within the next few years.”
“UV sheetfed offset printing also continued to grow in the packaging market while the market for UV commercial printing is already saturated in Europe,” noted Roland Schröder, product manager UV Europe at hubergroup.
“It was a challenging year for the printing industry, and the ink industry in general,” said Jonathan Graunke, VP - UV/EB technology and assistant R&D director for INX International Ink Co. “Energy curable technologies were not immune to the supply chain challenges, which made for difficult decisions in the procurement of materials and came at considerable cost. Printers were faced with substrate shortages, and of course labor challenges impacted all. I am really proud of how the INX team embraced the challenges and were able to keep open the supply chain for energy curable ink. This led to a steady year in 2022, and I believe it has opened new opportunities for growth moving forward. I am also personally deeply appreciative of how some of our suppliers were able to support us and the industry.”
Jim Bishop, product manager UV, EB & conventional offset products at Sun Chemical, said that this past year saw the market for energy curable inks and coatings continue to grow.
“Depending on the end use segment, we feel this growth is ranging between 2% and 3%,” Bishop continued. “Many new large format, high-speed UV sheetfed presses were installed in the North America market, and this trend is expected to continue as these new presses bring strong productivity gains. The use of LED for flexo, narrow web, and commercial applications remains very strong too.”
Fabian Köhn, global head of narrow web product management at Siegwerk, reported that the two principal and predominant topics for energy curing inks in 2022 were the high costs and the availability of raw materials.
“This put a big burden and pressure on both ink suppliers and printers,” Köhn said. “Generally, the industry managed this challenge quite well showing an overall stable business in most regions throughout the year. Only China had a particular hard time with several large lockdowns due to the country’s zero COVID policy in 2022 leading to a decline in business in comparison to 2021.”
Without a doubt, the fastest growing portion of the energy curable ink business is UV LED. Aside from concerns over the regulatory future of mercury lights, which power conventional UV curing, UV LED offers significant additional benefits for users.
“The general consensus is LED is growing more rapidly,” Graunke said. “Press manufacturers have embraced LED UV curing, and virtually all new narrow web flexo and sheetfed presses have the option to have LED installed. The efficiencies of LED UV and the absence of ozone from a UV lamp make installations less complex with the elimination of certain air flow ducting.”
Graunke added that retrofitting is also a much simpler process.
“UV lamp manufacturers have developed solutions that allow for the conversion of existing UV systems to LED with existing footprints, making it very cost effective,” Graunke noted. “It also allows the user to capture energy savings and eliminate mercury UV bulbs from their process.”
“More and more customers are either ordering new presses or retrofitting existing water-based and UV presses with LED curing systems, primarily because of energy cost savings,” Dedman said. “LED adoption seems to be steadily gaining traction across the print industry, and we fully expect that growth to increase moving forward.”
Hinataya said that UV LED printing has seen more growth. “The reasons for this are speculated to be the rising cost of electricity and the switch from mercury lamps to LED lamps,” added Hinataya.
Blasek reported that hubergroup sees a global trend towards UV LED applications in flexo printing.
“The main drivers are energy cost savings and sustainability,” Blasek said. “We at hubergroup support this and want to collaborate with customers based on long-term concepts. However, LED technology is in sum still more expensive than the traditional UV technology. Consequently, UV drying with mercury vapor lamps is still most common. Within the next years, we expect a further trend towards the LED technology.”
Schröder pointed out that mercury technology is still leading the way in UV sheetfed offset printing. “There have been major leaps in the UV LED technology in recent years but there are still some technical limitations due to the small number of available photoinitiators and the currently still narrow LED absorption spectrum,” Schröder added.
Derrick Hemmings, product manager, EC flexo, screen and LED NA & ECP Canada for Sun Chemical, reported that the LED segment is estimated to be around 15% of the total energy curable graphic arts market.
“We feel that both LED and UV/EB continue to grow at the same rate,” Hemmings said. “RadTech suggests an LED increase from 12% in 2019 to over 20% in 2022. This increase continues to primarily be in digital, commercial offset, screen, and narrow web. Sustainability surrounding energy savings is a key driver of this increase, however, it also can be attributed to increased productivity and throughput.”
Hemmings added that digital, commercial offset, screen, and NWTL (narrow web, tag and label) customers continue to lead the way in UV LED conversion and equipment sales.
“Of primary interest to Sun Chemical are LED for sensitive packaging applications, the need for more compliant, low migration solutions, and heat sensitive substrates for further lightweighting of packaging,” Hemmings said. “These needs, along with the significant energy savings (upwards of 50%) being rationalized by converters, continues to help drive UV LED conversion in graphic arts. It’s worth keeping an eye on LED for commercial print applications, as it presents an excellent value proposition and is gaining traction in the industry. Conversions of conventional sheetfed presses to LED provide an excellent path to higher productivity.”
Olsson said that Flint Group has seen a significant uptake in UV LED products since Q3 2022.
“Contributing to this increase is the focus by printers, converters, and brand owners on reducing their greenhouse gas emissions,” Olsson said. “Currently, Asia and the United States have a larger share of LED lamps. In Europe, there is a large number of pending installations of UV LED lamps. We estimate that lamp installations in Europe will double over the next 12 months, where high energy costs and potential electricity shortages are driving this change.”
Köhn said that as in previous years, UV LED is growing faster than traditional UV, in particular in Europe, where high energy costs act as a catalyst for the LED technology.
“Also in markets like India, Southeast Asia and Latin America, we see an ongoing strong momentum towards UV LED,” Köhn said. “UV LED systems continue to become more and more cost-competitive and more and more new products are launched on the market that complete the offering.”
“Using EB inks for flexible film packaging applications continues to be an area of interest for quite a few converters in North America,” Bishop noted. “Converters seek the ability to surface print a multitude of film types, including recyclable films, which offer many advantages. EB offset and flexographic inks are actively used and possess the ability for utilization on reverse lamination prints. EB topcoats offer a variety of gloss levels, high abrasion resistance, and are remarkably resilient. We’ve seen press speeds rise to 1600 fpm.”
“Globally, EB curing remains rather a niche market compared to UV technology,” said Blasek. “The reasons for this are the advanced technical and safety requirements as well as high purchase and consumption costs for the equipment. The US market is definitely in a leading position when it comes to EB applications.”
“In offset packaging printing, we see an increasing interest in EB curing,” Schröder noted. “However, it remains to be seen whether the investments will come and contribute to market growth.”
“We see a growing interest in the EB segment that is mainly triggered by product safety concerns,” Köhn said. “But we don’t see a growing market yet.”
“The EB sector is expected to grow in the future,” Hinataya said. “Despite the high cost of installation, we expect understanding of the benefits of EB to spread.”
“The ink industry is fortunate that the suppliers of EB curing technologies have a strong understanding of how EB can provide unique solutions for certain printing applications,” Graunke said. “They realize that working with ink suppliers is the key to success, which allows the development for specific applications.”
Bishop pointed out that energy curable inks and coatings, including UV and EB products, are being formulated to meet increasingly more demanding compliance standards, so that converters and brand owners can have full confidence to apply these technologies in food packaging applications.
“As validation, migration and additional testing efforts intensify, the technology in return is becoming more precise,” Bishop said, noting that Sun Chemical operates four analytical labs globally to conduct migration studies of finished packages.
“Year after year, we recognize additional merits in energy curing technologies,” said Olsson. “While there are still perceptions that newer technology, such as UV LED for food packaging applications, must continue to be tested and proven, we believe that the consistency and longevity of cure performance on labels and packaging printed under UV LED lamps is a major benefit for these markets. And, the fact remains that reduced costs and energy consumption drive the UV LED market forward.”
Köhn observed that all over the globe, brand owners care for enhancing the product safety of their food packaging.
“And as there will be implemented new regulations over the next years, such as the German Ink Ordinance or the French Decree N° 2020-172 to ban mineral oils in packaging to just name two, more and more printers and brand owners already prepare for future compliance now,” Köhn said.
“Overall, energy curing technologies have clear advantages over other ink technologies that printers and brand owners do not want to miss.,” Köhn observed. “In terms of food packaging, a full product offering in UV and UV LED is already available worldwide that meets the high requirements of food applications. However, one cannot stress enough that food compliant inks are only an enabler to produce food compliant packaging. At the end, it’s about adapting the entire production process to meet the stringent requirements. Here, ink suppliers can actively support printers in a successful production changeover.”
“UV/EB continues to be a strong viable technology for food packaging applications,” Graunke said. “It is high speed, instantly dry, and its surface printed resistance properties allow for package lightweighting. As companies move to different materials for printing, UV/EB can be a natural fit. An example is how the traditional, single-use beverage containers are moving to all plastic to improve their recycling capabilities. UV is a natural fit for printing on those containers.”
“In some food packaging, there is growing interest from solvent-based printing to other printing methods due to environmental considerations, in which case energy-cured technology with high film strength may be the technology of choice,” Hinataya said.
“Around the world, UV flexo applications are predominantly used for food packaging,” Blasek said. “Of course, the most common applications are labels, shrink sleeves, and wrap arounds. The UV flexo technology has several advantages for printers: It can be used for a variety of printed products and short runs are possible. In narrow web printing, several technologies such as water-based and UV can be combined.”
“We’re definitely seeing an increase in interest for UV low migration inks for food packaging, I believe mainly because of the proliferation of so many smaller runs and multiple SKUs, which fit very well into the narrow web print sector,” Dedman said. n
Ultraviolet (UV) and UV LED remain the largest portion of the market, with electron beam (EB) a smaller share. Anecdotally, UV LED is the fastest growing sub-section of the market. Overall, energy curable inks are a sizable business, with consultants placing overall sales at between $2 billion and $3 billion annually.
In terms of companies, UV/EB inks are produced by a wide range of manufacturers. All of the major international ink industry leaders are in the UV ink segment, and there are a few companies – T&K Toka and Zeller+Gmelin – that are primarily focused on energy curable inks and coatings.
In speaking with industry leaders, the UV ink business was solid again in 2022, with more good news on the way. Niklas Olsson, global director product & commercial excellence, Narrow Web at Flint Group, noted that market intelligence suggests the market for energy curing technology is stable with some minor growth, while Hideyuki Hinataya, GM of the Overseas Ink Sales Division at T&K Toka, reported that power-saving UV printing is growing continuously in 2022, partly due to a switch from
conventional printing.
Ed Dedman, flexo technical support/product manager for Zeller+Gmelin Corp., said that overall, the energy curing inks market remained strong in 2022.
“Sales were somewhat impacted by raw material availability, but we were able to push through and maintain a strong sales and supply position,” Dedman reported.
Alexander Blasek, global project manager UV flexo at hubergroup, noted that in 2022, the global UV flexo market remained stable with a slight positive trend.
“Also at the beginning of 2023, we see that this positive trend continues,” added Blasek. “We expect the market for UV flexo applications to further grow within the next few years.”
“UV sheetfed offset printing also continued to grow in the packaging market while the market for UV commercial printing is already saturated in Europe,” noted Roland Schröder, product manager UV Europe at hubergroup.
“It was a challenging year for the printing industry, and the ink industry in general,” said Jonathan Graunke, VP - UV/EB technology and assistant R&D director for INX International Ink Co. “Energy curable technologies were not immune to the supply chain challenges, which made for difficult decisions in the procurement of materials and came at considerable cost. Printers were faced with substrate shortages, and of course labor challenges impacted all. I am really proud of how the INX team embraced the challenges and were able to keep open the supply chain for energy curable ink. This led to a steady year in 2022, and I believe it has opened new opportunities for growth moving forward. I am also personally deeply appreciative of how some of our suppliers were able to support us and the industry.”
Jim Bishop, product manager UV, EB & conventional offset products at Sun Chemical, said that this past year saw the market for energy curable inks and coatings continue to grow.
“Depending on the end use segment, we feel this growth is ranging between 2% and 3%,” Bishop continued. “Many new large format, high-speed UV sheetfed presses were installed in the North America market, and this trend is expected to continue as these new presses bring strong productivity gains. The use of LED for flexo, narrow web, and commercial applications remains very strong too.”
Fabian Köhn, global head of narrow web product management at Siegwerk, reported that the two principal and predominant topics for energy curing inks in 2022 were the high costs and the availability of raw materials.
“This put a big burden and pressure on both ink suppliers and printers,” Köhn said. “Generally, the industry managed this challenge quite well showing an overall stable business in most regions throughout the year. Only China had a particular hard time with several large lockdowns due to the country’s zero COVID policy in 2022 leading to a decline in business in comparison to 2021.”
The UV LED Market
Without a doubt, the fastest growing portion of the energy curable ink business is UV LED. Aside from concerns over the regulatory future of mercury lights, which power conventional UV curing, UV LED offers significant additional benefits for users.
“The general consensus is LED is growing more rapidly,” Graunke said. “Press manufacturers have embraced LED UV curing, and virtually all new narrow web flexo and sheetfed presses have the option to have LED installed. The efficiencies of LED UV and the absence of ozone from a UV lamp make installations less complex with the elimination of certain air flow ducting.”
Graunke added that retrofitting is also a much simpler process.
“UV lamp manufacturers have developed solutions that allow for the conversion of existing UV systems to LED with existing footprints, making it very cost effective,” Graunke noted. “It also allows the user to capture energy savings and eliminate mercury UV bulbs from their process.”
“More and more customers are either ordering new presses or retrofitting existing water-based and UV presses with LED curing systems, primarily because of energy cost savings,” Dedman said. “LED adoption seems to be steadily gaining traction across the print industry, and we fully expect that growth to increase moving forward.”
Hinataya said that UV LED printing has seen more growth. “The reasons for this are speculated to be the rising cost of electricity and the switch from mercury lamps to LED lamps,” added Hinataya.
Blasek reported that hubergroup sees a global trend towards UV LED applications in flexo printing.
“The main drivers are energy cost savings and sustainability,” Blasek said. “We at hubergroup support this and want to collaborate with customers based on long-term concepts. However, LED technology is in sum still more expensive than the traditional UV technology. Consequently, UV drying with mercury vapor lamps is still most common. Within the next years, we expect a further trend towards the LED technology.”
Schröder pointed out that mercury technology is still leading the way in UV sheetfed offset printing. “There have been major leaps in the UV LED technology in recent years but there are still some technical limitations due to the small number of available photoinitiators and the currently still narrow LED absorption spectrum,” Schröder added.
Derrick Hemmings, product manager, EC flexo, screen and LED NA & ECP Canada for Sun Chemical, reported that the LED segment is estimated to be around 15% of the total energy curable graphic arts market.
“We feel that both LED and UV/EB continue to grow at the same rate,” Hemmings said. “RadTech suggests an LED increase from 12% in 2019 to over 20% in 2022. This increase continues to primarily be in digital, commercial offset, screen, and narrow web. Sustainability surrounding energy savings is a key driver of this increase, however, it also can be attributed to increased productivity and throughput.”
Hemmings added that digital, commercial offset, screen, and NWTL (narrow web, tag and label) customers continue to lead the way in UV LED conversion and equipment sales.
“Of primary interest to Sun Chemical are LED for sensitive packaging applications, the need for more compliant, low migration solutions, and heat sensitive substrates for further lightweighting of packaging,” Hemmings said. “These needs, along with the significant energy savings (upwards of 50%) being rationalized by converters, continues to help drive UV LED conversion in graphic arts. It’s worth keeping an eye on LED for commercial print applications, as it presents an excellent value proposition and is gaining traction in the industry. Conversions of conventional sheetfed presses to LED provide an excellent path to higher productivity.”
Olsson said that Flint Group has seen a significant uptake in UV LED products since Q3 2022.
“Contributing to this increase is the focus by printers, converters, and brand owners on reducing their greenhouse gas emissions,” Olsson said. “Currently, Asia and the United States have a larger share of LED lamps. In Europe, there is a large number of pending installations of UV LED lamps. We estimate that lamp installations in Europe will double over the next 12 months, where high energy costs and potential electricity shortages are driving this change.”
Köhn said that as in previous years, UV LED is growing faster than traditional UV, in particular in Europe, where high energy costs act as a catalyst for the LED technology.
“Also in markets like India, Southeast Asia and Latin America, we see an ongoing strong momentum towards UV LED,” Köhn said. “UV LED systems continue to become more and more cost-competitive and more and more new products are launched on the market that complete the offering.”
EB Printing
By contrast, the EB printing and ink segment has not had anywhere near the growth of UV, largely due to higher costs, although Dedman said there does seem to be some growth in adding EB capability in the wide web packaging market.“Using EB inks for flexible film packaging applications continues to be an area of interest for quite a few converters in North America,” Bishop noted. “Converters seek the ability to surface print a multitude of film types, including recyclable films, which offer many advantages. EB offset and flexographic inks are actively used and possess the ability for utilization on reverse lamination prints. EB topcoats offer a variety of gloss levels, high abrasion resistance, and are remarkably resilient. We’ve seen press speeds rise to 1600 fpm.”
“Globally, EB curing remains rather a niche market compared to UV technology,” said Blasek. “The reasons for this are the advanced technical and safety requirements as well as high purchase and consumption costs for the equipment. The US market is definitely in a leading position when it comes to EB applications.”
“In offset packaging printing, we see an increasing interest in EB curing,” Schröder noted. “However, it remains to be seen whether the investments will come and contribute to market growth.”
“We see a growing interest in the EB segment that is mainly triggered by product safety concerns,” Köhn said. “But we don’t see a growing market yet.”
“The EB sector is expected to grow in the future,” Hinataya said. “Despite the high cost of installation, we expect understanding of the benefits of EB to spread.”
“The ink industry is fortunate that the suppliers of EB curing technologies have a strong understanding of how EB can provide unique solutions for certain printing applications,” Graunke said. “They realize that working with ink suppliers is the key to success, which allows the development for specific applications.”
UV/EB and Food Packaging
Whenever the subject of food packaging comes up, so too does the topic of low migration and regulatory matters. UV/EB ink industry leaders believe that energy curing is ideal for food packaging.Bishop pointed out that energy curable inks and coatings, including UV and EB products, are being formulated to meet increasingly more demanding compliance standards, so that converters and brand owners can have full confidence to apply these technologies in food packaging applications.
“As validation, migration and additional testing efforts intensify, the technology in return is becoming more precise,” Bishop said, noting that Sun Chemical operates four analytical labs globally to conduct migration studies of finished packages.
“Year after year, we recognize additional merits in energy curing technologies,” said Olsson. “While there are still perceptions that newer technology, such as UV LED for food packaging applications, must continue to be tested and proven, we believe that the consistency and longevity of cure performance on labels and packaging printed under UV LED lamps is a major benefit for these markets. And, the fact remains that reduced costs and energy consumption drive the UV LED market forward.”
Köhn observed that all over the globe, brand owners care for enhancing the product safety of their food packaging.
“And as there will be implemented new regulations over the next years, such as the German Ink Ordinance or the French Decree N° 2020-172 to ban mineral oils in packaging to just name two, more and more printers and brand owners already prepare for future compliance now,” Köhn said.
“Overall, energy curing technologies have clear advantages over other ink technologies that printers and brand owners do not want to miss.,” Köhn observed. “In terms of food packaging, a full product offering in UV and UV LED is already available worldwide that meets the high requirements of food applications. However, one cannot stress enough that food compliant inks are only an enabler to produce food compliant packaging. At the end, it’s about adapting the entire production process to meet the stringent requirements. Here, ink suppliers can actively support printers in a successful production changeover.”
“UV/EB continues to be a strong viable technology for food packaging applications,” Graunke said. “It is high speed, instantly dry, and its surface printed resistance properties allow for package lightweighting. As companies move to different materials for printing, UV/EB can be a natural fit. An example is how the traditional, single-use beverage containers are moving to all plastic to improve their recycling capabilities. UV is a natural fit for printing on those containers.”
“In some food packaging, there is growing interest from solvent-based printing to other printing methods due to environmental considerations, in which case energy-cured technology with high film strength may be the technology of choice,” Hinataya said.
“Around the world, UV flexo applications are predominantly used for food packaging,” Blasek said. “Of course, the most common applications are labels, shrink sleeves, and wrap arounds. The UV flexo technology has several advantages for printers: It can be used for a variety of printed products and short runs are possible. In narrow web printing, several technologies such as water-based and UV can be combined.”
“We’re definitely seeing an increase in interest for UV low migration inks for food packaging, I believe mainly because of the proliferation of so many smaller runs and multiple SKUs, which fit very well into the narrow web print sector,” Dedman said. n
