Coatings World - April 2016

LED Curing Technology for Coatings

Edge Coating

Edge coating lines utilize LEDs to ensure consistent, high-quality results.

Machines can be made more compact
due to small form factor; speed can be
increased due to consistent UV output;
and the diffuse nature of LED light
can be used to more effectively cure
shaped surfaces which previously re-
quired multiple mercury lamps at vari-
ous angles.

Roller Coating

LED is a perfect match for roller coating lines, both for gelling and full-cure stations. The benefits include better factory floor utilization due to shorter, more efficient lines; increased uptime with no degradation in UV output; less expensive input stock due to lack of infrared heat; and reduced operating cost by more efficient electricity use and no need for costly air ducting systems.

Digital Printing

While technically not a wood application, creating a wood-grain look on diverse materials is made possible with LED and ink-jet printing. By using a combination of pinning and full-cure light sources, realistic ‘look’ and more importantly ‘feel’ is enabled by creating texture to mimic the grains of natural wood. This is especially valuable in decorative and accent applications.

Automotive Applications UV curing has been used for years in several areas of the automotive production process. UV provides near-instant curing of functional and decorative coatings. And the lightweight materials used in today’s automobiles benefit from the low temperatures enabled by LED technology.

Industrial Manufacturing Countless manufacturing processes make use of the benefits of LED curing. Applications range from manual curing of the adhesives used during sub-component assembly, to high-speed curing of coatings and colorings of the finished products.

Conclusion

LED-based curing is becoming more widely accepted for industrial coating applications. The coatings industry continues to challenge and drive the material formulation suppliers with LED wavelength optimized materials. At the same time, LED curing technology has become more efficient in delivering higher energy to the media, thus driving environmentally clean, energy efficient and compact size units with increased throughput and process flexibility. CW