Editorial

Citation

(2004), "Editorial", Pigment & Resin Technology, Vol. 33 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/prt.2004.12933eaa.001

Editorial

Radiation curing technology offers a number of unique advantages over conventional curing technologies. Such advantages include faster curing, better adhesion and low (no) VOC. Recent years have seen is a rapid increase of the application of radiation curing technology in printing and coating industries. This issue contains two papers relevant to radiation curing technology.

In their paper entitled “Review of basic chemistry of UV-curing technology”, Dr Shukla and his colleagues gave a detailed description of the compositions of typical UV curable systems and functions of components of typical UV curable systems. New comers to the radiation curing technology will find this paper of particular value as an introduction to the field of radiation curing.

Readers may be aware that ink-jet printing technology has maintained its astonishingly great momentum of development in the last decade. However, due to the low viscosity requirement for the ink and the small ink film thickness, development of UV curable ink-jet printing inks has experienced significant technical difficulties. Hancock and Lin provided an insight to the challenges of developing UV curable ink-jet printing inks, from an ink formulator’s perspective, based on their experience in this area. Readers who are interested in developing radiation curable ink-jet printing ink systems will find this paper of help.

In countries of abundant natural products, it is logical to investigate the feasibility of utilising natural products for various applications. Dr Bouyanzer and Professor Hammouti, at the Laboratoire de Chimie des Eaux et Corrosion (Morocco), reported the results of their investigation on the anti-corrosion effects of Artemisia oil on steel. It was found that Artemisia oil was an effective inhibitor against corrosion of steel.

Experimental design and statistical analysis of data provide powerful tools for the identification of the significance of the effects of various compositional and process parameters on the performance/properties of a system, a fact that many chemists choose to conveniently overlook. Mr Galton demonstrated the usefulness of experimental design and statistical analysis methodology, through a study of the effects of printing plate/printing parameters on the quality of printed images. For those readers who are interested in using experimental design and statistical analysis, tools in their studies/investigations, the editor would like to recommend Minitab 14, the latest version of a very user-friendly, yet, powerful statistical software package (www.minitab.com).

Wood coatings differ in their capability of creating a barrier to moisture. The editorial team was pleased to include Dr Fotsing and Mr Ndadja’s report on their investigation on the moisture resistance of two types of wood coating.