Market demand for energy curing will continue its global growth of between 4 to 7 percent a year through 2010 as the process delivers “value added” benefits to an array of industrial applications. That was one among many positive notes at last month's second uv.eb WEST conference in Los Angeles, sponsored by RadTech (www.radtech.org).

About 450 ultraviolet- and electron-beam curing industry professionals attended the event, which also featured more than 60 tabletop exhibitors. Forty-six presentations on developments in printing and converting, aerospace, automotive, wood finishing, composites and inkjet printing were offered.

“UV-curing technology continues to develop solutions that overcome barriers to conversion from current solvent-based processes,” said David Harbourne, president of Fusion UV Systems, in his market and technology overview. “UV curing will continue to be viewed as a commercially viable, proactive alternative to conventional VOC, HAP and CO2 emitting processes.”

Breakthrough products working their way toward commercialization:

UV LEDs as curing sources rather than traditional UV lamps. These systems are said to offer very long lifetimes of up to 20,000 hours, no infrared heat output, compact size, low energy consumption and instant on/off. Now relatively expensive, the new UV LED's power density cannot rival that of conventional UV lamps.

Miniature electron-beam units (less than 2 cubic ft in size) that are compact, modular and highly efficient.

Nanometer-sized metal powders that can be energy-cured and applied to micro-electronic inks and inkjet-printed semiconductors and other electronics.