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The quiet enabler of modern label production
Hardly any other process in the labelling industry receives as little attention as siliconisation – yet it has a significant impact on productivity, material usage and product quality.
The global market for self-adhesive labels is growing steadily. Key drivers include the logistics sector, e-commerce, food packaging and pharmaceutical applications. At the same time, converters are under increasing pressure to optimise material usage and production costs and to improve their profitability.
Three developments are currently shaping silicone coating:
the increasing prevalence of linerless labels
the growing importance of LED-UV-curable silicone systems
growing interest in formulations with reduced photoinitiator content
For narrow-web converters, the ability to balance productivity, material usage and cost-effectiveness is becoming a key competitive factor.
Self-adhesive labels are a widely used label format throughout the world. Behind every standard self-adhesive label is a release liner – often an essential component of the overall material structure.
Typical substrate materials are:
Glassine papers
Supercalendered kraft papers
Clay-coated kraft papers
PET films
Polyolefin films
Glassine, in particular, has established itself in the narrow-web sector due to its good release properties, dimensional stability and cost-effectiveness.
With increasing demands on material usage and recycling concepts, the focus is shifting increasingly towards both lighter substrate materials and alternative concepts such as linerless labels.
Traditional pressure-sensitive labels consist of three functional layers:
Facestock
Adhesive
Silicone-coated release liner
The liner protects the adhesive throughout production and application but becomes waste immediately after dispensing.
Linerless labels eliminate this carrier layer by applying the silicone release coating directly to the printable material.
Depending on the application and label design, this offers various advantages:
more labels per roll
reduced transport and storage requirements
no separate release liner
longer production runs possible
However, this is offset by more stringent requirements. The silicone coating must be precisely tailored to the specific application, curing becomes increasingly important, and the demands on process stability are rising.
For this reason, linerless solutions will complement traditional release liners for the foreseeable future, but will not replace them in all applications.
As processors pay increasing attention to total production costs, the design of the curing process is becoming increasingly important.
In addition to energy consumption, manufacturers are evaluating technologies and formulations against criteria including the following:
Use of materials and raw materials
Photoinitiator content
Migration behaviour
Process reliability
One example of this is our UV system FREEcure, which utilises a curing spectrum rich in UVC. With suitable silicone formulations, FREEcure can enable curing with a reduced photoinitiator content. The actual results depend on the formulation used, the application rate, the production speed and the respective process parameters.
Future developments in silicone coating will be shaped, amongst other things, by:
the increasing prevalence of label-free labels
RFID label applications
digital printing requirements
requirements relating to materials and recycling concepts
regulatory requirements
a greater focus on total cost of ownership
In this context, the design of the curing process, formulation optimisation and material efficiency will be just as important as production speed.
Silicone coating remains one of the key technologies in modern label production.
Regardless of whether thermal, conventional UV or LED-UV curing systems are used, investment decisions are increasingly driven by the overall cost-effectiveness of the process rather than by individual performance indicators.
The coordination of chemicals, process control and curing technology enables converters to tailor production processes specifically to the respective requirements of label production.
