Coatings World - May 2014

UV curing refers to a particular way of energy/radiation curing wherein various product formulations, including coatings, inks, adhesives, and further materials may be cured, rather than using traditional methods which are usually energy intensive and generate harmful emissions. In UV curing technology, multifunctional resins are cross-linked by exposure to UV light. The UV light triggers a UV photo initiator in the formulation to generate polymerization initiating species which very rapidly convert the liquid UV resins to a fully cross-linked coating. The multifunctional resins employed in such formulations are termed as UV curable resins which can be broadly classified as monomers and oligomers. The monomers used in UV formulations include acrylates (various functionalities), methacrylates (various functionalities), vinyl esters, and others. The oligomers used in UV curable coatings are predominantly acrylate in nature in which epoxy acrylates are most common. The other types that play a role are polyester, unsaturated polyester resins, polyurethane, poly-ether, acrylic acrylates, and a few other resins depending upon linkages and chemistry types.

The UV curable resins market is experiencing huge growth which is expected to continue in the near future, majorly driven by the highly growing Asia-Pacific region and intense efforts at the country level to promote envi-ronment-friendly products. A significant amount of investments are made by various market players in order to be prepared to serve the high potential ones in future. Asia-Pacific is the major global market, which accounted for more than half of the total global demand in 2012. The region is further expected to show quite a high growth in future, mainly due to high growth potential of the Chinese market.

The coating industry was the single-largest application of ultra violet curable resins, with UV curable coatings manufacturers consuming more than 65.0 percent of the total demand in 2012. Budding demand for high-performance products which comply with the stringent emission standards is pushing the demand for UV curable resin at a notable pace. Inks manufacturing is comparatively consuming less quantity of UV curable resin but the demand growth is anticipated to be significant due to increasing application of UV curable inks in packaging printing.

This study basically aims to estimate the global UV curable resins market for 2013 and to project the expected demand of the same by 2018. This market research study provides a detailed qualitative and quantitative analysis of the global market. It provides a comprehensive review of major market drivers, restraints, opportunities, winning imperatives, challenges, and key issues in the market.

The market is further segmented and projected for major regions such as Asia-Pacific, North America, Europe, and ROW, which is further segmented for key countries in each region. We have used various secondary sources such as encyclopedia, directories, and databases to identify and collect information useful for this extensive commercial study of the global market. The primary sources – experts from related industries and suppliers - have been interviewed to obtain and verify critical information as well as to assess the future prospects.

Competitive scenarios of top players
in the UV curable resins market have been
discussed in detail. We have also profiled
leading players of this industry with their
recent developments and other strategic
industry activities. These include: Allnex
Belgium SA (Belgium), Eternal Chemical
Co. Ltd. (Taiwan), Sartomer USA LLC
(U.S.), BASF SE (Germany), IGM Resins
B.V. (The Netherlands), Jiangsu Litian
Technology Co. Ltd. (China), Miwon
Specialty Chemical Co. Ltd. (South
Korea), etc.

Global 1,4-BDO Market
to Grow at a CAGR of 4. 8
Percent from 2014-2020

The global market for 1,4-butanediol (1,4-BDO) is expected to reach $6,947.1 million by 2020, according to a new study by Grand View Research, Inc. Growth of footwear industry, mainly in Asia Pacific, is expected to drive the market for 1,4-BDO over the forecast period. In addition, 1,4-BDO is used for manufacturing tetrahydrofuran (THF) which is further used for manufacturing spandex, a raw material for sports apparel. Growing number of global sporting events is expected to augment sport apparel demand, which is likely to reflect in 1,4-BDO market. However, volatile raw material prices coupled with stringent environment regulations, mainly in North America and Europe is expected to be a key challenge for market participants over the next six years. In order to overcome these challenges, the industry has shifted its focus towards developing bio-based 1,4-BDO which along with providing an eco-friendly solution also provides cost competitiveness against its synthetic counterpart. Some major companies developing bio-based routes to 1,4-BDO include BASF, Purac, DSM, Mitsubishi Chemicals, Myriant and Genomatica. THF emerged as the leading application for 1,4-BDO and accounted for 29. 9 percent of the total market volume in 2013. Polyurethane, on account of growing footwear demand mainly in China, India and Brazil is expected to be fastest growing application market for 1,4-BDO, at an estimated CAGR of 5.1 percent from 2014 to 2020. 1,4-BDO demand for PBT and GBL is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4. 9 percent and 4. 3 percent from 2014 to 2020.