A small North Idaho company that manufactures specialty ultraviolet-light curing lamps says its fortunes are being boosted by the trend toward green practices.

The company, Albatross UV, a limited-liability corporation, is benefiting from a transition to UV-based curing by numerous users, including commercial printers, which are moving away from solvent-based inks and use the lamps to dry environmentally friendly inks, says Doug Lawrence, Albatross' director of business development.

"Every business is becoming green conscious any more, especially printers," Lawrence says. "Solvent-based inks produce VOCs," or volatile organic compounds, which are a source of air pollution, "and take a while to dry. UV-based inks don't produce VOCs and dry instantly" when exposed to ultraviolet light.

Other industries, including wood products makers, also are turning to UV curing, says Lawrence. For example, Roseburg Forest Products, of Klamath Falls, Ore., and Columbia Forest Products, of Greensboro, N.C., use ultraviolet light to dry finishes they put on plywood used by furniture makers in their products, he says. Moreover, certain wavelengths of UV light destroy DNA in bacteria, making UV light useful in sanitation and in sterilizing transparent liquids such as water and semitransparent liquids such as apple juice, and UV light is used to sanitize the surfaces of medical instruments and to dry ink on packaging.

That certain adhesives don't become sticky until they're hit with UV light has applications in industry. One is in the making of Plexiglas from pieces of plastic that can be matched up, adjusted, and repositioned freely until they're bombarded with UV light, which causes the adhesive between the pieces of plastic to bind them together, Lawrence says.

Karlo Marusic and Frank Musa own Albatross, and although the company doesn't disclose its annual sales, "We're feeling pretty good," says Lawrence, a former employee of a General Electric subsidiary who has consulted with Albatross since 2007 and joined the company in July.

"We have grown sales every year since 2005," Lawrence says. "Especially with the hard economic times we've had since 2007, we're pretty proud of what we're doing."

In March, the company moved from its original home, at 7808 Aqua Circle, in Dalton Gardens, Idaho, near Coeur d'Alene, to a 10,000-square-foot building at 3480 W. Seltice Way, in Post Falls, that it purchased and on which it has completed a $300,000 remodel.

The structure, a onetime automotive building, has a large manufacturing area. It had other occupants over the years, and the 2 1/2-acre property Albatross owns there includes two other buildings that together have 11,000 square feet of space, which it's using for storage for now, Lawrence says.

The company, which employs 10, plans to hire two or three more production workers and also is looking to sign distributors. Its network includes foreign distributors, some of whom maintain a small inventory of commonly used lamps, although Lawrence says, "Most of these lamps are pretty specialized."

Albatross was founded when Marusic, who worked for another company that made ultraviolet lamps, "saw opportunities that the company he was with wasn't filling, and decided he would go out and fill those markets," Lawrence says.

Albatross has customers all over the world, and although it's small, it now makes a total of 1,300 styles and models of UV lamps, he says.

"Karlo and I are pretty much the sales force," he says.

The lamps are made with transparent tubular fused quartz, the ends of which are shaped a certain way through glassblowing processes. The lamps have a gas chemical fill. When voltage is applied to the fill, it enters a plasma stage, which produces ultraviolet light, Lawrence says. Plasma has some of the properties of a gas, but differs in that it is a good conductor of electricity and can be affected by a magnetic field. Lawrence says to think of it as different from a solid, liquid, or gas.

UV lamps are sealed, and the ones that operate through the application of voltage have an electrode on either end, between which the current arcs. The length between the electrodes, say 3 inches, defines the length of the lamp.

Electrical UV lamps are referred to as standard arc lamps, but the company also makes microwave lamps, which give off ultraviolet light when they're bombarded with microwaves, and metal halide lamps, which are filled with compounds of halogen that has been "doped" through the addition of iron, gallium, or indium. The UV light from such lamps has longer wavelengths and penetrates substances more deeply, broadening its uses.

"All of our lamps are handmade," Lawrence says. "We produce a very good product at a very good price. We market very aggressively. There's not a lot of UV lamp manufacturers in the country, or even the world. U.S. and U.K. manufacturers are known for having the best quality in the world." The Chinese manufacture UV drying lamps, but Lawrence says, "Our quality is better, and we can match their price."

Still, Albatross is small, and Lawrence says, "We're probably not even on the radar at this point" as far as many people are concerned.

UV light is usually applied in "ovens" that are sealed off to protect workers because it can burn the skin and even the retina. Because the makers of the ovens don't manufacture their own lamps, they mark up the prices of the replacement lamps they buy and make available to their customers, "and that drives a lot of people to us," Lawrence says. "It gives us an opportunity to come in and offer a very competitive lamp."

Albatross isn't known particularly for making innovative products, Lawrence says, adding, "We make a very good replicate lamp."

UV curing lamps wear out for various reasons, including that the electrodes in arc lamps spew off tungsten particles, which accumulate on the quartz of the lamp, darkening it and causing the lamp to put out less light. Microwave lamps last five times longer than arc lamps, but the quartz in them starts losing its translucence, or its ability to let light shine through, when dusts and vapors in the industrial environment accumulate on them.

One of the keys to Albatross' success is a proprietary manufacturing process that Marusic came up with, Lawrence says. "He amazes me," he says, but adds that he can't comment further on the proprietary process.

While the company doesn't make its lamps in what would be called a clean-room environment, it mixes the chemical compounds that go into its lamps in an inert atmosphere chamber and also employs a filling and evacuating station to add the chemical fill to its lamps.

"Between the two stations, we maintain cleanliness inside the lamps," Lawrence says. Glassblowing also is done precisely.

"We electrically test everything that leaves the factory, so we know it's going to work," Lawrence says. "Our customer service is strong. We have a high repeat-customer business."

The lamps are expensive, but the company doesn't publicly disclose prices, Lawrence says. He says the pricing environment is extremely competitive.

The company, which moved because it was running out of room at its Dalton Gardens location, originally was founded as American UV, but because a company with a similar name objected to the North Idaho company's use of the American UV name, it renamed itself Albatross UV.

Even though an albatross is an ungainly bird when it lands, it can have a wingspan of up to 11 feet, can fly great distances, can drink saltwater, and can go as long as four or five years without touching land, so the bird has some notable attributes, Lawrence says.