Determination of chemical migrations of photoinitiators, which are frequently encountered in uv-curable inks in the printing industry

Abstract

Some photoinitiators used in inks, lacquers and print films are minor chemicals and have high chemical mobility. Since these substances are also harmful to human health, their use has been limited by some regulations by the European Union. In the printing industry, ITX, benzophenone, and Irgacure are among the most commonly used. Within the scope of this study, equal amounts of different photoinitiators (ITX, benzophenone, and Irgacure) were added to the formulation of UV-cured ink with the same chemical content, and their chemical migrations were determined by the LC-Ms method with the help of Tanex LC–MS conditions for calibration experiments: Flow rate 0.4 mL pre-column, 50 wt.% ACN–50 wt.% water. First of all, the calibration curve of each photoinitiator was prepared and then the amount of photoinitiator passing through the square meter was calculated with the help of the calibration curve. As a result, it was determined that Irgacure had the lowest migration and ITX had the highest migration.