TABLE OF CONTENTS Due to the many advantages of UV curing, a lot of new applications for radiation curable coatings are emerging. Among them are printing applications, like UV Inkjet, label printing, gravure and wide web flexo, adhesives, like pressure sensitive adhesives or CD bonding, clear coats for metallized plastics, exterior coil coating of steel and aluminium, and automotive applications.1 In Asia, especially electronic applications, like photoresists and flat panel displays, are the drivers, while Asian companies are also the market leaders in CD s and DVD s, where adhesives and protective coatings are UV cured.2 UV applications for 3D substrates, such as TV sets and vehicle parts, have been reported recently.3 Especially the major advances in the equipment development for 3D applications and curing of weather resistant coatings have opened up new application fields with automotive applications providing the entry to many other industrial coating possibilities (Figure 10.1).
Besides UV applications already in use in automotive parts, like motor sealings, sensor encapsulates, electronic parts, headlamp assemblies, lens and reflector coatings, graphic identification labels, name boards, dashboard screen printings or battery labels, new automotive applications under development are:
Primer or sealers of plastic and SMC parts;
Automotive refinish coatings;
Clear coats with high scratch resistance.
As UV coatings enter the market as an alternative to almost all thermally cured coatings, the issue has been raised, what are the basic...
