For many years, the coatings and printing ink industry has been working hard, forced by legislation or national recommendations, to reduce the amount of organic solvents (VOCs) used. This can be achieved by increasing the solid content from low solids via high solids and “extra high solids” finally to solvent-free powder coatings.
An alternative would be to substitute organic solvents by water in waterborne coatings and printing inks. A third way, which is currently becoming increasingly important for printing inks, is to apply radiation-curing systems, where reactive thin — ners are used instead of organic solvents and these thinners are incorporated in the dry film without solvent emission.