Special
Curing oil and lacquer with LED
IS A LED FINISH FOR WOODEN FLOORS STILL A TRENDY MARKETING TOOL? TRADITIONAL UV CURING IS STILL THE STANDARD TECHNIQUE FOR NOW Arjan Maatkamp (DecoRad Systems bv - NL) DecoRad Systems bv from Veenendaal in the Netherlands offers a full range of portable on-site UV/LED curing equipment plus industrial LED equipment. UV equipment from DecoRad Systems is suitable for all UV lacquers and coatings which are currently available worldwide. General manager Arjan Maatkamp explains: ‘Parquet is one of our three segments. We also focus on the finish of concrete and flexible floors.’ Recently, this company, which is part of an electronics concern, has invested in new corporate premises. All together, the concern numbers sixty employees. Arjan Maatkamp likes to stress the unique selling points of DecoRad Systems: ‘Worldwide, we have a handful of rivals, but we’re the only ones who do our own designing, building, and marketing. We control the entire process. Customers here can be sure of quality, partly through CE, TÜV, and an ISO 9001 quality guarantee.’ ‘Customers usually contact us first of all via the web site, where they get a good look at our range of equipment. To give an idea of where the equipment is made and by whom, we’ve made a company video, which we send with all our price quotations. This video has proved to be a nice solution in view of the restrictions on travel.’ Flexible floors as a growth market We mentioned above that the DecoRad market consists of three segments. The current focus is on flexible floors. ‘This is a very sizeable market, which includes schools, hospitals, elderly care homes, airfields, and such like. Then there are large surfaces of Marmoleum, PVC, and vinyl. Polymering often comes into play there, but there is an attractive alternative. Polymering means putting three coats of wax onto each other and leaving them to dry for a few hours. That’s a process which takes some 10 to 12 hours. Once or twice a year, those coats of wax are stripped using an alkaline agent to soften and remove them. And so, the waste water goes down the drain and you discharge millions of litres of stripped chemicals each year.’ ‘The biggest gain with UV coatings is that you never need to do that again. A permanent seal with UV coating is solventless and it dries at once. The result is a really durable solution which also lasts much longer (three to five years, with some frequent dry cleaning and/or with a damp flat mop). In today’s sustainable society, with solar panels, windmills, and electric cars, isn’t it logical that we dispose of an ancient and environmentally unfriendly technique like polymering? After all, we have a fantastic alternative.’ Breaking patterns with UV ‘For those who like figures, did you know that five million square metres of Marmoleum is fitted in the Netherlands and Belgium alone? That means lots of polymer waste is scrubbed off and rinsed through the drains. If you break that pattern, it’s a win-win.’ ‘This has given rise to a partnership with Forbo Eurocol, the biggest linoleum floor supplier in the world. Forbo Eurocol 326 UV-CareShield is a mono-component permanent protective layer for high-traffic linoleum floors. Forbo Eurocol 326 UV-CareShield has been developed using DecoRad UV equipment and we’ve become the worldwide distributor for this product due to our expertise in on-site UV. In our view, the shift from polymer to UV on flexible floors would get the most benefit from UV technology. It’s a positive development for everyone and for the environment.’
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Floor Forum International 117
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