Strategic Material Design Enables Green Technology for the Environment

Coloring of individual optical fibers is necessary for identification purposes in the finished cable. Organic solvent-based inks have typically been used for that; however, they pollute the environment with toxic and hazardous emissions. Recently use of organic solvent based inks posed a serious problem for us at the Lucent-Atlanta location. As more and more optical fibers were colored with solvent inks in recent times, the level of harmful emissions increased at the same time. Soon it reached the allowable annual emission limit for the location and caught the attention of local environmentalists, state legislators and regulators. However, Lucent Technologies Inc., as a corporation is strongly committed to protecting the environments as well as the health and safety of its workers and people in the community. To this end we have been proactively pursuing for a viable alternative for sometime. Here we describe how we accomplished this strategic goal by implementing the state-of-the-art UV technology, which completely eliminated VOC and HAP emissions from the optical fiber coloring arena. We also describe how we championed the complex development of new UV curable materials for the specific application. Overall the UV system enabled a safe and clean "green technology" for the environment while making quality products at reduced cost.