Wetting, Flow, and Leveling and Dispersing Solutions for UV-Cure Coatings
UV/EB-cure technology offers increased productivity, lower energy consumption and environmental advantages.1 Therefore, formulators and end-users prefer formulation systems based on UV/EB-curable systems compared to conventional water- or solvent-based technologies as evidenced by their increasing use in coatings, inks and adhesive applications. The growth in the number of applications and the variety of substrates, such as thermoplastic polyolefins (TPO) in automotive and metallized plastics in mobile handsets, requires UV-curable formulations to possess special properties for specific end-uses.2,3 First, some basic definitions are in order.