The status quo and development trend of packaging printing liquid ink (1)

According to ink ink rheological properties of the classification method, ink products are divided into two categories: the paste ink and liquid ink. The method of classifying inks by the printing plate type, in which the gravure ink, the flexographic ink, and most of the mesh printing inks are liquid inks. This article will focus on the status quo and development trends of gravure and flexographic inks.

The production and application of liquid ink in China is developed with the technological progress of the packaging and printing industry in China. Liquid inks have been produced in small quantities in the late 1950s. The production volume in the 1960s was still small. Its type was gravure printing ink and was mainly used by the publishing industry. From the late 1960s to the early 1970s, plastic film packaging materials began to be used in China. Followed by the ink company launched a gravure printing plastic ink, in the PE and PP surface sheet printing. In the late 1970s, water-based inks were successfully developed and put into production. In the early 1980s, flexographic printing inks began to be produced. In the late 1980s, intaglio printing plastic ink came out in China. In the 1990s, gravure printing inks developed rapidly. Since the mid and late 1970s, printing companies in China have introduced multicolor intaglio printing presses from abroad. With the increase in printing speed and the adoption of new packaging materials, the development and production of liquid inks in China has entered a new era and has now basically taken shape. The four major systems of liquid ink products: surface printing plastic ink, plastic ink printing (gravure composite plastic ink), gravure printing ink, water-based flexographic ink.

First, table printing plastic ink In the late 1960s and early 1970s, with the adoption of plastic film as a new packaging material, the emergence of domestic gravure plastic film printing machine, polyamide resin as the main material of the plastic Intaglio printing inks were first introduced by ink companies in Tianjin and Shanghai. The products are characterized by high gloss and strong adhesion. After more than three decades of improvement and improvement, its quality level has basically met the needs of domestic printing companies. In addition, there are PVC plastic ink printing ink, film free processing plastic ink, silk screen plastic ink and so on.
Plastic table printing inks need to improve the quality of products are: 1 improve the coloring of ink: domestic ink coloring power is significantly lower than imported ink, this is because the concentration of domestic pigments itself is worse than the imported pigments, generally only imported 80- 90% In actual production, if the amount of pigment used is increased from the standard of 10% to 12%, although the tinctorial strength can be improved, some of the varieties of ink and ink have problems. Therefore, the pigment factory to increase the pigment concentration, ink companies need to improve the ink, is the urgent need to solve the problem of plastic ink printing. 2 to improve the ink's frost resistance: domestic ordinary plastic table printing ink, poor resistance to low temperature in the winter, the ink product is easy to jelly, in the ink bucket is not easy to pour, need to return to normal temperature conditions before use, to Printing companies have brought certain difficulties in use. This is mainly due to the low freezing point of the main link material polyamide resin of the ink. After years of exploration and practice, ink companies of all sizes can produce antifreeze inks. Specific measures are: use of low freezing point polyamide resin, adding auxiliary resin, adding antifreeze additives, etc., can all play a role in reducing the freezing point. 3 to solve the thermal adhesion: Table printing plastic ink is based on polyamide resin as the main material, and fight with other resin, to ensure the gloss of the ink and solve the heat adhesion defects. However, there are also a lot of ink manufacturers, in order to reduce costs, only one polyamide resin is used as the binder, and the quality of the polyamide resin is poor (such as the softening point is within 95°C), so the ink is printed and then printed. There are multiple disadvantages of adhesion. To solve this problem, ink manufacturers should use polyamide resins with softening points and penetration criteria (such as a softening point between 105-115°C) and a certain amount of nitrocellulose as a secondary binder. 4 Develop inks with special properties: At present, due to the wider use of inks, the requirements for inks have become increasingly stringent. Therefore, the polyolefin film inks, oil-resistant plastic inks, water-resistant and anti-freeze plastic inks, heat-resistant Plastic inks, etc., have all been researched and developed and put into production one after another. The varieties of table printing plastic inks will gradually improve.
With the improvement of human environmental awareness, "ink water" has become imperative. In 2000, experts and professors from the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangdong Province successfully developed the “water-based gravure plastic film printing ink” and passed the inspection of the National Quality Supervision and Inspection Center for Printing and Decoration Products. The scientific research results have been brought to market and produced. The ink has the characteristics of good adhesion fastness, good gloss, no solvent residue, etc., which can meet the requirements of environmental protection customers and export product packaging.

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