by Sergio Medeiros, RadTech South America Board Member and Founder and Director of BRCHEMICAL

Maybe I’m not a typical Brazilian: I don’t like Carnival. I also don’t much like Açaí, although Açaí goes very well with bananas and other fruits, which remind me of Carmen Miranda, a Portuguese singer. Many people thought she was Brazilian, myself included, until running some quick research about her before writing this article.

In the 40’s, Carmen Miranda had a song called “I Make My Money With Bananas,” and yes, we have bananas in Brazil – the country is the fourth-largest global producer. We also have UV curing and make some money from it, although maybe not as much as we do with bananas and other fruits (to be confirmed).

UV curing in Brazil started industrially in the late 1960s, with UV fillers becoming massive in the early 90’s, due to overprint varnishes (OPVs) and wood varnishes that nowadays still are the main applications. Also in the early 90’s, RadTech South America was started under the acronym ATBCR. This stood for Associação Técnica Brasileira de Cura por Radiação, which can be translated directly to Brazilian Technical Association of Radiation Curing. Years later, ATBCR has associated with RadTech North America, becoming RadTech South America.

Thanks to Mrs. Maria Cristina Kobal Campos de Carvalho, Mrs. Maria de Fátima Serantoni and so many other important people, ATBCR explored a desert of information, knowledge and raw materials, brilliantly bringing UV technology to the map in Brazil.

When I first heard about UV curing, I tried to imagine how a coating could dry without any heat, solvent or water. The technology hooked me. I started to say “cured” instead of “dry” – and here I am, almost 24 years later, presenting this brief introduction about the history of UV curing in Brazil.

When discussing raw materials for UV curing in Brazil, total use can be estimated as shown in Figure 1.

I would like to give a very special thanks to Mrs. Pamila de Melo from Allnex Brazil – and also a board member of RadTech South America – for her precious help with these numbers and all of the important information presented here.

The idea of this article was to give a relaxed and brief introduction about the history of UV curing in Brazil. I promise that the next article will be more interesting, but I can’t promise that I’ll be the one to write it after submitting for review this article you’re reading!

P.S. I’m terrible at soccer.

For more information on RadTech South America, visit www.radtech.org.br.