Getting Better All the Time

Duncan said, "With an improving economy, more printers will be willing to make the capital investment in one of these energy-curing technologies in order to capitalize on the instant-dry, green, and print performance properties of UV and EB."

Benefits abound with energy-cured inks. There's no loss of solvent or issues such as ink drying too fast or too slow like printers have with solvent inks, said Zubair Khan, Environmental Inks & Coatings (EIC) technical business manager of UV products. Also, he said, "There's no pH drift or viscosity build-up [that's] associated with water inks. The on-press ink stability of UV inks is excellent."