On the advantages and development of UV ink

On the advantages and development of UV inks

UV experimental machine inks of different series, as the name suggests, are specially formulated inks that use the photosensitive effect of ultra violet light waves to make the ink film-forming and drying. The drying and film-forming mechanism of UV ink is a chemical change. Different prepolymers and monomers are polymerized into polymers by using different ultraviolet spectra to produce different energies. Therefore, the color film of UV ink has good mechanical and chemical properties

comparative advantages of UV ink and traditional ink

generally speaking, UV drying ink has greater wear resistance than traditional solvent or epoxy ink. The best example is the symbols on each key on the computer keyboard, which are printed with UV ink. A famous large company once conducted experiments, repeatedly hitting the UV ink printed keyboard and the traditional ink printed keyboard with a mechanical "finger". As a result, the traditional ink printed keyboard symbols were worn out about a million times, while the UV ink printed keyboard symbols were worn out about 13 million times. The abrasion resistance of UV ink is 1300% of that of traditional ink. Moreover, its drying speed is also greatly improved compared with traditional ink, which is reduced from 7 minutes to 15 seconds, saving 96% of the time

uv ink also has high solvent resistance after drying. This solvent resistance is partly due to the high crosslinking density (macromolecular weight) of the crosslinked dry ink layer. The high degree of crosslinking makes the molecules unable to separate and dissolve with each other under the action of solvent. In addition, UV ink can also be used with some solvent resistant chemicals

for the purpose of comparison, let's take a look at the situation after replacing epoxy ink with UV ink. First, do not mix ink before use. Secondly, of course, it saves time, because epoxy ink needs to be dried for a long time under certain high temperature conditions, while UV ink is almost instant drying. This is also accompanied by another advantage, which is to reduce the ink layer damage caused by heating. UV ink also saves a lot of drying workshop

the epoxy ink prepared has another disadvantage: its stability is poor, and it will condense into a mass in the ink bucket after mixing for a period of time. You have to stop to clean the ink fountain, which wastes time and reduces productivity. But UV ink is different. Its stability is very good. It can be said that there will be no condensation. UV ink has more characteristics than traditional ink

of course, there are some specific factors to consider before converting the ink used. Such as equipment problems required for converting to UV ink, measuring instrument problems, etc. If the surface performance of the substrate is low, the surface must also be photochemical treated to ensure the adsorption of ink, which requires the addition of some new quality control equipment. Such and so on, it is suggested to do a good job in the overall planning before the conversion, and do not rush

uv ink has the property that its viscosity changes dramatically with the change of temperature, which will have a great impact on the printing adaptability and printing film thickness. Generally, when the ink temperature decreases, the viscosity increases and the film thickness becomes thicker. The viscosity of ink becomes too high, the permeability of silk is poor, and foaming and porosity are the results of many printing. Therefore, to produce products that are more in line with market demand, please try to keep the room temperature constant during printing. Generally, it's better to use the owl. Some inks absorb moisture when the humidity of the printing site is high, such as tackiness and gel. At this time, please use air conditioner or dehumidifier to deal with the problem

uv ink market share forecast

the use of UV curable ink and coating began in the 1970s. Now the printing industry has a large market share, including applications in lithography, aniline printing, letterpress and other fields. The only reason why it can not be used in rotary Photocopying is that rotary Photocopying requires low viscosity of ink, which limits the use of UV curable ink. It is predicted that by 2005, the market of UV curing inks will rise from $1.1 billion in 2001 to $1.5 billion. In the United States, the output value of the printing industry using UV inks and coatings is about 1. 5% per year Billion dollars, the amount of ink and paint is roughly the same. Of course, the growth rate depends on the development of the branch market. The annual growth rate ranges from%, and the growth rate of most companies can reach%. Some fields, such as plastic spray food packaging industry, have developed rapidly in recent years, such as ink printing, silk printing and flexographic printing. Due to the current low market share, the growth rate is also relatively large, which can reach 20%

at present, roll offset printing accounts for the largest market share. It can be applied to the production of direct mail, business forms, folding cartons and credit cards. UV inks and coatings have been widely used in narrow flexo printing, but most of the wide flexo printing has not been involved in this field, mainly because wide flexo printing is mostly used to produce food packaging. Many printers believe that UV inks and coatings may affect people's health and cannot be used in food packaging. However, flintink said that they have made great progress in the development of odor free UV flexographic inks that can be used to print food packaging. In addition, in wide format printing, expensive equipment and the lack of user friendliness have hindered the popularity of UV inks and coatings. The application of UV technology in medium width printing equipment is relatively successful. Although there are still some problems, one thing is certain. In packaging printing, whether offset printing or flexo printing, the application of UV ink and coating is on the rise, not including gravure printing. UV technology has been selectively used in gravure printing, but the technology and cost have also increased accordingly

at present, some labels and packaging cartons are printed and coated using both UV and EB (electron beam) technology. At the same time, UV coating is also the main raw material in the production of multilayer kraft paper bags. Now energy curing products are entering every corner of the market, with great economic significance of the flexibility of encoders, etc. Mike, the sales and marketing manager of sun ink company, said, "if the performance and quality characteristics brought by energy curable (EC) products are not needed by people and it is not possible to exist, then no product can provide services to users at a lower cost." Paul, the technology manager of flintink, agreed: "UV technology is suitable for the packaging industry, which has a large output and low cost."

the market share of electron beam EB curing is about US $30 million to US $50 million, accounting for almost 13% of the whole energy curing market. Compared with the UV curing drying system, EB equipment is more expensive and covers a larger area, so the growth rate is relatively slow. Although the price of the equipment has decreased to a certain extent, from 1million five years ago to 300000, the chemical raw materials used have not changed and are still more expensive

UV ink has broad prospects for flexo printing, especially for narrow web flexo printing. Most flexographic machines are equipped with UV devices, and there are many kinds. At the same time, environmental protection is not the biggest problem in flexo printing. They pay more attention to less downtime, higher performance, stronger friction resistance, better print quality and brighter colors. Using UV ink for flexographic printing can obtain higher point sharpness, which is better than using water-based and solvent based inks. At the same time, it is not necessary to use only four-color inks like traditional printing. You can choose one, two or more inks for printing, without restrictions. Because UV ink is more viscous than water-based ink, it is easy to stick to the printing plate, so a clean environment is extremely important. If flexo printing wants to grow, it needs to develop new markets. Therefore, UV flexo printing ink should meet the market standards. UV flexo printing has advantages over offset printing in the printing of folding cartons, because it is favored for its additional online coating function. Especially for printing with large printing volume, it is easier to dry

source: Shanghai packaging