Emerging Technology Award Winners Presented at RadTech

____________________________________________________________

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Gary Cohen, RadTech
(240) 497-1242, gary@radtech.org

Honorees: U.S. Air Force--Armstrong World Industries--Breit Technologies--DVUV, LLC--Ford Motor Company-- General Motors--Objet Geometries--3M and Mohawk Industries

Bethesda, MD - (May 30, 2008) Eight leading edge organizations were recognized by RadTech-The Association for UV (ultraviolet) and EB (electron beam) technologies, at the group's recent biennial Conference in Chicago. "UV and EB offer manufacturers advanced tools to not only improve their processes, but to create new methods and new products," says Petra L'Abbe, of PPG and President of RadTech. "Our award winners are top examples of product and manufacturing breakthroughs made possible by the use of UV and EB."

"The broad array of applications and processes of our award winners is a tribute to the enabling and practical benefits of UV and EB," says Peter Weissman of Quaker Chemicals, and Chair of RadTech's Emerging Technologies Committee. "Each of these applications of UV and EB makes a significant contribution to the advancement of process technologies."

UV and EB are high value, rapid throughput processes offering the virtual elimination of harmful emissions and lower energy consumption compared with traditional methods--providing manufacturers with a safe, fast and efficient pollution prevention technology. As a result, the industry continues to grow at over twice the rate of traditional methods.

Overview of Award Winners

U.S. Air Force

-- UV Cured Aerospace Materials --

The United States Air Force (USAF) most commonly uses coating systems for painting aircraft and support equipment that require a minimum of
72 hours of cure time before an aircraft can be flown. To comply with Air Force technical orders, this cure time also applies to the coatings used for stencils and markings that are applied over the topcoat. In most cases, the markings (such as tail number, American Flag emblems, "U.S. Air Force" markings, etc.) are the last to be applied and are therefore a contributor in preventing the aircraft to be flown, leading to reduced mission readiness. In a military/corporate partnership, which includes Bayer MaterialScience, H&S Autoshot, and Deft, a UV-curable coating for markings that is of the appropriate color(s), has been developed that adheres to military specification topcoats, and fully cures in minutes. "The coating is projected to save the USAF many hours of down-time for each aircraft that gets repainted each year," according to David Diehl, project consultant. In the first-of-its-kind demonstration, the coating was applied to an Air National Guard F-16 stationed in Iowa in December 2007. "This technology is one that can eventually be applied to all USAF and other DoD aircraft for immediate time and cost savings," says Michael Dvorchak of Bayer MaterialScience. "At the same time this application is also opening the door to other UV-curable coatings technology such as primers, topcoats, and specialty coatings."

Armstrong World Industries

-- Pioneer in the Use and Development of UV/EB as a Sustainable Technology --

Armstrong received special recognition at the event for the pioneering use of UV/EB technology as a "sustainable technology," and for contributions to RadTech in helping to define and document the environmental benefits of the process.

Armstrong was one of the earliest adopters of environmentally friendly and energy efficient UV-curing processes. Since 1973 when it launched a coated "No Wax" resilient residential tile using a UV coating, Armstrong has expanded the technology to five North American plants (Lancaster, PA; Jackson, MS; Kankakee, IL; Southgate, CA; and Montreal, Canada). Following its success with residential tile, Armstrong continued to develop and manufacture improved tile products as well as sheet products for the residential flooring market.
Armstrong has executed a multi-plant project to migrate from solvent-based coatings systems to water-based or 100 percent-solids UV/EB coatings systems. For those few plants still using some solvent, the systems are now UV curable and fully HAPS-compliant.
Additionally, Armstrong has been a corporate end-user member of RadTech for many years. As part of the expansion of the technology into California's South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD), Armstrong scientists helped to develop the ASTM D5403 test protocol now used to define ultra-low emission coatings.

Breit Technologies

--Cast to Cure Printed Holograms--

Breit Technologies distributes a patent pending process that creates Cast to Cure Printed Holograms and special effect materials, using UV/EB technology. The Breit system "prints" holograms using a UV/EB curable coating that is nipped into contact with a film which contains a holographic, or other micro-embossed image. This material is then cured via UV/EB energy, and the film is rewound off the coating. The shape of the image on the film is then set in the coating, and the film is re-usable multiple times. Advantages of this process include offering a much lower cost option for decorative print processes, elimination of the use of laminating films, and elimination of the metallizing layer to name a few. It is inherently a green process on several levels, it improves recyclability as it removed the lamination, the film is reusable multiple times, reducing carbon footprint, and the film itself is recyclable. The process also allows for the use of RFID tags, due to the lack of interference from the metallizing layer. It offers several security benefits of holograms, it can be spot applied, and image registered.

DVUV, LLC

--LaserWood - UV Cured Powder Coatings on a Laser Embossed MDF Substrate --

DVUV, LLC manufactures custom MDF components. They are also the owner and developer of LaserWood a patent pending technology that combines the high speed processing of laser embossing on MDF substrate to create wood grains, patterns and logos with the finishing of UV cured powder coatings; clear, tinted, opaque or special effects. The UV Powder coating is supplied by Keyland Polymer's UV.
LaserWood eliminates the need for laminate materials and the costs associated with utilizing those materials. This technological advance is similar to what downloading MP3 music files from the internet has done to the CD music industry, makes the CD media obsolete. Design files are stored as data and downloaded and manipulated through the LaserWood process as needed eliminating manufacturing inefficiencies; material, processing, labor, energy. The speed and efficiency of laser embossing complements the extraordinary material and process benefits of UV cured powder coatings. This technology in totality combines laser processing, UV cured powder coating material development and UV cured powder coating applications.

Ford Motor Company

-- UV Curable Materials for In-Line Spot Repairs at an Automotive OEM Facility--

Coating vehicles in an automotive assembly plant sometimes results in small paint defects in the finish, such as a spec of dirt or a mar in the clearcoat, which must be fixed before continuing the vehicle assembly process. Presently, there are two repair methods: take the vehicle offline and spot repair using catalyzed OEM materials; or send the vehicle back through the topcoat booth and oven and completely repaint with OEM basecoat and clearcoat. The current spot repair process is very time consuming, with one vehicle taking up to an hour to repair. A complete repaint is not desirable because not only is a new vehicle removed from the topcoating process, but the additional cost of coating the vehicle twice is substantial. This emerging technology focuses on the use of UV curable clearcoats and primers, as spot repair materials. The UV process would reduce the repair cycle time by 50% and show a marked improvement in material quality over other current repair products. Introduction of this process would not only reduce paint warranty costs, but it would also reduce process costs by increasing the number of repairs that can be performed in a given day, thereby reducing the number of costly full body repaints.
Potential systems are currently being evaluated using standard Ford durability specifications and test procedures. Once a system has passed all submission requirements, it will be rolled out to the appropriate assembly plants after necessary facility modifications are made. When implemented, this process would be the first use of an UV curable clearcoat in an automotive OEM facility worldwide.

General Motors

-- UV Cured Floor Coatings as Best Available Technology for Mansfield Stamping Plant --

The General Motors Mansfield stamping plant is a typical heavy industrial manufacturing site. This nearly two and a half million square foot facility brings in coiled steel and converts it to fenders and roofs as well as inside and outside door assemblies. Since this plant is rarely out of service, shutting down entire sections of the facility while waiting days for a floor coating to dry was at best a hindrance to work flow and in many areas impossible. Dan Sullivan the Facility Manager for the GM Mansfield plant recognized this as a serious problem and challenged Quaker Chemical's Chemical Management Service Business to find a solution. In April of 2006 the first UV curable floor coating was trialed and at the GM Mansfield facility and it's been full steam ahead ever since. The result is the first wide scale adoption of UV curable floor coatings by a major manufacturing company. To date the plant has coated over 100,000 square feet of it's floors and continues to coat others areas of the plant on a regular basis. Union employees regularly prepare new sections of flooring, apply the clear and color coatings and then cure with a UV floor coating machine specially designed to minimize worker exposure to the UV light. The larger GM organization also sees the advantages of this technology and is considering adopting the UV curable floor coatings corporate wide. Currently the GM Creativity Team is considering UV curable floor coatings as a best practice for all GM facilities globally.

Objet Geometries

-- UV Ink-Jet Technology to Build Composite Three-Dimensional (3-D) Parts --

Objet Geometries is a pioneer in the manufacturer systems that jet photopolymers as an ultra-thin-layer, high-resolution 3-dimensional printing solution for rapid prototyping and rapid manufacturing.
Objet's latest innovation is based on "PolyJet MatrixT" technology, which offers the simultaneous jetting of multiple UV curable materials to create composite materials on the fly. This is the first technology enabling the manufacture of 3-D parts using several different materials at the same time. The technology allows the design and formation of unlimited combinations of UV-curable materials. For example, if one of the component UV-curable materials has a white color and the other a black color, materials with varying gray tones can be produced during a single building process. Alternatively, if one of the component UV-curable materials is soft and elastic and the other is rigid and brittle, intermediate or varying mechanical properties can be produced. In addition, because the materials are not simply a homogeneous combination of two different materials, but composite materials, where each component material keeps its own properties within a microscopic phase range, their properties are not just the average of the properties of the component materials, but may even surpass them. This capability enables the user to test prototypes that are very close to the desired end-user part in terms of mechanical properties and material combinations (e.g. over-molding and double injection), and thus aiding in selection of the end-materials that will make up the final product. This rapid process saves days of simulation and the preparing of complex and expensive molds for double injection. In addition, it eliminates the need for silicon molds and preparation of different end-product materials for testing.

3M and Mohawk Industries

-- Scotchgard Protector Advanced Repel Technology for Wood Flooring--

Pre-finished wood flooring has become more and more popular due to its many advantages over unfinished flooring. Manufactured pre-finished wood flooring can be easily installed and ready to use without the additional coating step. It also has much higher durability due to the highly cross-linked protective topcoat making warranties of 10-25 years possible. Now an advanced class of pre-finished solid and engineered wood floors has been developed by 3M and Mohawk Industries to provide highly desirable easy-care properties. The new ScotchgardTM protective technology allowed Mohawk to incorporate proprietary chemistry, developed by 3M, into the topcoat which utilizes the UV curing process. This new wood flooring has unprecedented stain, soil, and mar resistance due to the imparting of an easy-release physical property. This is accomplished without any adverse effects on floor properties such as durability, appearance, and slip resistance. The improved easy clean properties have been shown to be extremely durable to traffic wear and cleaning.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------