Several high-tech ink characteristics

In the current situation of increasingly loud environmental protection calls, the packaging and printing industry is also demanding environmentally friendly products. Food packaging should comply with the CEPE standard in industry standards. From the perspective of inks, it is necessary to constantly solve the problem of harmful substances such as lead, benzene, aromatic compounds, and ethyl glycol in the ink, and ensure the safety of foods, supplies, and the health of printing personnel. From the results achieved by the ink industry, the results are still very encouraging. In 1974, lead in ink pigments was removed; in the late 1970s, cellosolve (ethyl glycol) was removed; in the early 1980s, toluene in food packaging instructions was removed; in the late 1980s, the associated benzidine was yellow Pigments; In the early 1990s, the use of phthalic acid plasticizers was reduced. In the initial stage of development of cationic inks (in the mid-1980s), some of the above-mentioned hazardous substances did not meet the regulatory standards. For example, benzene is a by-product produced by the production of cationic inks, and the subsequent generation of by-products under initiator light is not. Popular aromatic compounds and so on, these are all prohibited ingredients listed in the printing and food packaging ink regulations. Therefore, cationic inks have not been widely used at the initial stage. Up till now, some units still adopt a wait-and-see attitude, but after continuous improvement, the content of these harmful substances has finally reached the industry standard. Such as benzene, in the current production of cationic ink, its content is extremely low, using ordinary analytical techniques, simply can not be detected. Many test results on printed products and printing environments also showed that no benzene was found. The content of these substances is generally in the range of a few parts per billion (usually a single digit), which indicates that the package using photoinitiators no longer produces benzene. Looking at the development prospects of cationic inks, I believe most printing units will still use cationic inks with excellent properties. Although some customers still have plans to abandon the use of cationic inks, they show great advantages in the printing process and will certainly be recognized by customers. We believe that with the development of science and technology and the improvement of the ink industry, some of the disadvantages of cationic inks will surely find a good solution, like the excellent records mentioned above. Therefore, we must have a positive attitude and technical direction for these and better adapt to the new standards.
(1) Cationic coated adhesive

Gravure printing is fast, and when it is coated with adhesive it can appear dry (the presence of solvent) or wait a day for it to cure to a certain strength. In flexo printing, an adhesive is generally used on a printing press unit, the film is covered and cured at a normal printing speed, the coating of the printed matter can be cured within a few minutes, and it is also strongly cut on the printing press to the finished product. And hand it directly to the customer. In this case, there is no problem of harmful odor due to the volatilization of the solvent using the UV adhesive. The printer used a newly developed white pigment binder to remove the traditional solvent problems caused by back-white, followed by a white ink film. Solve the problem of the original solvent retention, and now, using a cationic adhesive coating, it is easy to reduce the residual solvent content per square meter to a very low level. This coating is now available on polyethylene, polyethers, metal sheets and other materials.

(2) Cationic Ink - Shrink Film

The vast majority of the shrink film market is occupied by solvent-based gravure printing, and very few are derived from solvent-based flexo printing. In fact, water-free inks are used. Flexographic printers have found that the ink system that can achieve the desired quality in flexo printing is a UV curable ink that has no solvent volatilization and that the print consistency is also good. However, when the shrinkage amount reaches 70%, the free volatile type ink and the mixed dry type ink exhibit poor adhesion. Cationic inks have passed this required test and become unique ink systems for OPS, PVC and OPP materials. The advantages of cationic inks in management and storage are obvious.

Three. Electronic ink

With the continuous networking and digitalization of printing technology, digital offset printing has begun to gain popularity both at home and abroad, and a new type of ink, electronic ink, suitable for use in digital offset printing machines has also been used by people. Electronic inks contain charged liquid ink particles that make it possible to electronically control the position of printed particles in digital printing. Electronic inks can reach very small particles (1 to 2 microns), so that small particles enable the printing to reach higher resolution and smoothness, sharpen the edge of the image, and form a very thin image layer. Electronic inks have now taken effect in the following areas. (1) The standard basic color CMYK; (2) The wide color gamut six-color setting increases the orange-red, purple, so that the color reproduction capability is much higher than the original four color-based color reproduction capabilities; (3) and PANTONE compatible Indigo Spot color system; (4) opaque white coating of colorless printing materials; (5) fluorescent ink. Indigo's color digital offset printers provide a unique combination of features. The presses use electronic ink (Indigo's unique liquid ink).

Electronic ink generally has the following advantages:

(1) High brightness, high definition and durability. Manufacturers use the same components as traditional inks, and only charge inks to make electronic inks. Therefore, electronic inks read similar to inks traditionally printed on paper, but they have high brightness and contrast when matched with paper. And can have a 180 degree perspective. (2) Low energy consumption. Once the white paint particle is driven to a state where an image has already appeared, the image may disappear (because there is no additional energy support), but this does not exist for the electronic ink. (3) strong printability. Electronic ink can be applied to almost all materials, it can be printed on textiles, paper, plastics and many other materials. We know that the LCD is displayed on the glass, but it is heavy and fragile. The electronic ink can be displayed on the plastic surface, which makes it ultra-thin, elastic and not brittle. Electronic ink is an ink. If someone accidentally gets splashed with electronic ink when he enters the laboratory, the person becomes a walking monitor.

Printing with electronic ink is very easy. For example: It can be used for web printing, and it is estimated that glossy advertising papers and other large format labels can be used in the near future. Today, electronic ink has begun to cooperate with other electronic devices. For example, E-Ink recently announced that it will cooperate with IBM to jointly develop a world-class SVGA electronic ink-based display, and it is estimated that electronic ink-based displays may be put into the market within the next year or two. It is said that electronic ink will also cooperate with emerging changes in the entire publishing industry in the field of printed electronics. Here, E-Ink and Lucent Technologies have produced the world's first fully printed display. Their ultimate goal is to print on one side of the paper with ink and the other side with electronic ink.