UV curing without photoinitiators: Self-initiating resins

 
Photoinitiators are key components of UV/LED curable inks and coatings for packaging applications. However, they are at the same time quite often a reason for concern as they are potential migratable or extractable components. In addition to this, increased regulatory requirements (e.g. the German Ink Ordinance) on photoinitiators forces the radiation curable packaging market to look for safer alternatives, especially for use in (indirect) food packaging applications. In this presentation we will share Covestro's development of novel Self-Initiating Resins. In these resins we combined benign photoinitiating moieties with an acrylated resin structure. We will describe resin design, synthesis and performance properties for UV curable (indirect) food packaging inks and coatings.