Recent progress in curing techniques

The impetus for high energy curing of coatings derives from several factors. One is that, inherently, high energy is less expensive than heat and is considerably more rapid. Also, high energy curing techniques can be applied to coatings which are completely unpolymerised or, at best, only partially polymerised, thus eliminating a critical processing step which is necessary for conventional coatings. Radiation curing has attracted wide attention, and the increase each year in the number of articles and patents relating to it are reminiscent of the interest demonstrated a decade ago in electrocoating techniques.