United States Air and Energy Engineering

Environmental Protection Research Laboratory

Agency Research Triangle Park, NC 27711

E AP Project Summary

Research and Development EPA/600/SR-95/060 June 1995

In support of the Source Reduction

Review Project (SRRP), maximum

achievable control technology (MACT)

standards development, and the Pollution Prevention Act, EPA is investigating the current industrial use and barriers to the extended use of waterbased

and radiation-cured coatings in SRRP

and MACT categories. The full report

gives results of a study to investigate

and identify the technical, educational,

and economic barriers to the use and

implementation of radiation-cured coatings in the non-textile screen printing

industry. Use of ultraviolet (UV)-curable

inks offers substantial economic and

process benefits, in addition to environmental benefits. Among the benefits

are (1) reduction in required floor space;

(2) increased throughput; (3) reduction

in health and safety hazards for workers exposed to screen printing inks;

and (4) reduced cost per unit area

printed. Technical barriers include ink

and substrate limitations and health and

safety issues. Economic barriers provide the greatest challenge to implementing UV-curable inks. The costs of

purchasing UV-curing units, coupled

with downtime required to effect the

changeover, are significant disincentives for the small printing shops prevalent in the industry. The principal educational barrier is the transfer of technical information from research organizations to small, diffuse printing

shops. The document suggests projects

that could help overcome the technical, educational, and economic barriers identified.

Evaluation of Barriers to the

Use of Radiation-Cured

Coatings in Screen Printing

C. Jeff Harris and J. David Winkler

This Project Summary was developed

by EPA’s Air and Energy Engineering

Research Laboratory, Research Triangle Park, NC, to announce key findings of the research project that is fully

documented in a separate report of the

same title (see Project Report ordering

information at back).

Overview

Section 4(b) of the Pollution Prevention

Act (PPA) of 1990 requires EPA to review

regulations of the Agency prior and subsequent to their proposal to determine their

effect on source reduction. The stated goal

of the PPA is “[T]hat pollution should be

prevented or reduced at the source whenever feasible.” This is a departure from

more traditional “end-of-pipe” control strategies, which sometimes transfer pollution

from one medium to another. Pollution

prevention strives to eliminate or reduce

pollution before it is produced. In support

of the PPA, EPA established the Source

Reduction Review Project (SRRP) to focus this review on the regulations (and

anticipated regulated industries) that may

be promulgated under the Clean Air Act

(CAA), the Clean Water Act (CWA), or the

Resource Conservation and Recovery Act

(RCRA). A goal of SRRP tasks is to ensure that source reduction and multimedia

issues are considered during the development of upcoming air, water, and hazardous waste standards.

An important set of regulations under

the CAA, a regulation of SRRP focus, are

the standards for maximum achievable

control technology (MACT) to reduce emissions of hazardous air pollutants (HAPs).
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Promulgation of these regulations began

in 1992 and will continue throughout the

1990s and into the next century. The

MACT standards offer an excellent opportunity to use SRRP to incorporate pollution prevention measures into the upcoming standards for specific source categories. The PPA defines pollution prevention

as “any practice that reduces the amount

of any hazardous substance, pollutant, or

contaminant entering the waste stream or

otherwise released to the environment (including fugitive emissions) prior to recycling, treatment, or disposal and reduces

the hazards to public health and the environment associated with the release of

such substances, pollutants, or contaminants.” Pollution prevention offers economic and reduced health and ecological

risk benefits to many sectors of society

that are not available through traditional

pollution control methods.

In support of the SRRP program, MACT

standards development, and the PPA, EPA

is investigating pollution prevention opportunities for products and materials that

reduce waste. The objective of this project

was to investigate the current industrial

use and barriers to the extended use of

waterbased and radiation-cured coatings

in SRRP and MACT categories. Both radiation-cured and waterbased coatings

have been demonstrated to reduce pollution in several specific end-use categories.

During the first task of this project, 52

industry categories were identified as having the potential to use radiation-cured

and waterbased coatings as pollution prevention alternatives. During this phase,

contacts were made with representatives

from coating suppliers and trade associations and limited literature searches were

completed. From this list of 52 potential

industry categories, 10 were selected for

further study. Preliminary market analyses were prepared for each of these 10

categories. Following the completion of

the 10 analyses, three categories were

selected for investigation: Adhesive-Coated

and Laminated Paper (SIC 2671 and

2672), Metal Cans (SIC 3411), and Commercial Printing - Not Elsewhere Classified (SIC 2759). All three of these categories face upcoming MACT standards. By

initiating this report, EPA has begun a

dialogue on pollution prevention with the

industry categories. When the MACT standards are developed, EPA will have a

better understanding of which coating technologies are feasible pollution prevention

alternatives for the three categories. Conversations with resin manufacturers, coating suppliers, and end users indicated that

waterbased coatings were already being

used extensively in the three categories,

particularly in the manufacture of metal

cans. Conversely, radiation-cured coatings

had made progress in each of the three

categories but were not widely used in

any of them. The limited penetration of

radiation-cured coatings offered the best

opportunity for research.

The screen printing project was initially

intended to study both ultraviolet (UV) radiation-cured and waterbased screen printing inks as possible alternatives to solvent-based inks with high volatile organic

compound (VOC) emissions. During the

project research, it became evident that

the focus should be on UV-curable inks.

Waterbased screen printing inks that are

currently available have many of the shortcomings that UV-curable inks have but do

not provide some of the benefits provided

by UV-curable inks. Therefore, the focus

of the project became the use of radiation-cured coatings. The focus of this report is on barriers to the use of radiationcured coatings in the non-textile screen

printing industry (SIC 27598).

This report gives results of a study to

investigate and identify the technical, educational, and economic barriers to the use

and implementation of radiation-cured

coatings within the non-textile screen printing industry. This project involved identifying and classifying barriers to use and

implementation, evaluating, and assessing the environmental impacts, and identifying pollution prevention and source reduction research opportunities within the

non-textile screen printing industry. To successfully accomplish these objectives, information was collected from several

sources including literature searches, plant

visits, pollution prevention experts, and

industry and trade association personnel.

Literature searches of the EPA on-line

databases, local university library databases, and Dialog® were conducted. The

Pollution Prevention Information Clearinghouse (PPIC) and the Pollution Prevention Information Exchange System (PIES)

were also accessed. The E-Mail capabilities of PIES were also used to communicate with other PIES users with knowledge of the non-textile screen printing industry.

In addition to research performed in libraries and computer databases, and

through phone conversations with industry representatives, three other major data

gathering activities were performed:

• Visited Rand McNally Book Services

Division in Nashville, TN,

• Attended the 1993 Screen Printing

Association International (SPAI) trade

show in New Orleans, LA, and

• Summarized and tabulated responses

to a SPAI survey of its members regarding their use of UV-curable screen

printing inks.

The full report (1) contains background

material and project summaries; (2) describes conventional screen printing processes and discusses material inputs,

manufacturing equipment, physical processes, product outputs, emissions, and

wastes; (3) discusses the alternative technology under investigation and evaluates

process, cost, and emissions and wastes

differentials between the conventional and

alternative processes; (4) identifies the

technical barriers to the extended use of

radiation-cured coatings and describes the

difficulties and available information on solutions currently under consideration; (5)

discusses economic barriers; (6) identifies

educational barriers; (7) presents additional

source reduction and pollution prevention

research opportunities; and (8) gives detailed results of a survey performed by

SPAI.
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C. Jeff Harris and J. David Winkler are with TRC Environmental Corp., Chapel Hill, NC

27514.

Carlos M. Nunez is the EPA Project Officer (see below).

The complete report, entitled “Evaluation of Barriers to the Use of Radiation-Cured

Coatings in Screen Printing,” (Order No. PB95-208864; Cost: $19.50, subject to

change) will be available only from:

National Technical Information Service

5285 Port Royal Road

Springfield, VA 22161

Telephone: 703-487-4650

The EPA Project Officer can be contacted at:

Air and Energy Engineering Research Laboratory

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Research Triangle Park, NC 27711

• •

United States

Environmental Protection Agency

Center for Environmental Research Information

Cincinnati, OH 45268

EPA/600/SR-95/060

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