The market demand for environmentally friendly ink has a "prosperous" potential

In order to meet users' diversified requirements for quality and variety of printed matter, printed publications and printed packaging products must be developed in the direction of diversification and gentrification. In order to achieve this goal, printing companies are constantly updating and improving their printing equipment. Updated, better ink. Offset printing ink has always been in an important position in the printing field and represents the status quo and development direction of ink products. However, the domestic offset printing ink technology level is still at a stage of development, and there is still a certain gap compared with imported inks of the same type. Printing users still use the ink during its use. Frequent problems, user problems and ink requirements are also the best guide for ink manufacturers to improve their products.

Improve the quality of the direction

In recent years, ink manufacturers have made remarkable achievements in the main technical indicators such as the color density, dryness, water resistance, printability, and on-board stability of offset inks, and have also achieved remarkable results. In spite of this, the development speed of the ink does not seem to be as fast as the printing technology. The lack of quality is always revealed at the time of printing.

1. Color concentration

Color concentration is the saturation of color. Now, newspapers are no longer black and white, and they are replaced with graphic newspapers. As a result, the color density of offset printing inks used by newspaper users is even higher. The advertisements, pictures, and titles on the color newspaper are more eye-catching, so the color density of the ink needs to be relatively increased. However, the color concentration of many newspaper inks is not satisfactory. In order to ensure the printing density, printing companies have to increase the ink volume or increase the percentage of outlets. This will inevitably cause stacking of ink and increase the use of ink. The level and color of printed matter are not only related to ink, but also related to the process conditions such as printing plate production, printing equipment, ink balance, etc. The quality of ink is also the prerequisite and guarantee for the improvement of printing quality.

2. Overprinting

There are two main requirements for the chromatographic properties of offset printing inks in newspaper printing. One is the color sequence, and the other is the viscosity of the ink. At present, the standard color sequence for printing in the international newspaper is cyan-magenta-yellow-black, and the viscosity should be gradually reduced. Otherwise, ink pull-back phenomenon will occur.

3. Dryness

The drying speed of the ink will usually affect the printing quality, and at the same time it will cause many printing failures, such as causing the back of the printed material to become dirty, and even causing the web printing to fail. During the interview, users generally reported that the dryness of domestic ink has a great influence on the quality of printed matter. Director Feng of Shandong Xinhua Weifang Plant deeply understands the importance of ink drying: “The workshop was printed with promotional materials before the factory celebration. At that time, it was printed with matt coated paper. After printing, it was dry for one week and it was delayed. In addition, the pink ink used in the cover of printed textbooks also appeared to be dripping for 3 days after printing. The above problems were caused by poor drying of the ink. "Of course, these are more typical phenomena, but they are made of ink. The problem of dry and incomplete prints, waste products, and dryness that are greatly affected by the season and climate cannot be ignored.

4. Printability

In modern printing, the variety of substrates is large, the types of auxiliary consumables are numerous, and the performance difference is also large. Therefore, the requirements for ink are also more complicated. Beijing Guocai Printing Co., Ltd. attaches great importance to the printability of inks. According to Lu Qiquan, the director of the company, in order to ensure the printability of the ink, they ensure the compatibility of ink and various consumables and substrates, often with a fixed number of The ink supplier stays in touch and informs the ink supplier of its own special requirements. The director of Shandong Xinhua’s Feng also believes that the printability of inks and various printing materials is very important. For example, when they use ordinary offset printing inks to print coated paper, the coated papers are printed with bright colors and good gloss; the same inks are used. Printing light coated paper, then through the phenomenon of printing is more serious, and the gloss decreased, but the market does not seem to have specifically applied to light coated paper printing ink, so he hopes that ink factory can be based on different substrates, especially now commonly used New materials, such as light-coated paper, developed the corresponding ink.

In addition. There are differences in the choice of printing inks for newspaper printing companies. For example, Mr. Zhu of Xinhua Daily told us: “Our press is an ink-jet method, and its performance requirements for inks are relatively high. At present, the performance of domestic inks, such as rheology and viscosity, cannot fully meet our requirements. Requirements: Under the ink printing equipment, there are also problems with stencil printing and dirty printing, and newspapers have relatively high requirements for pictures and titles. Therefore, we need the ink factory to adjust the relative performance of the ink according to our actual situation.

It can be seen that the printability of offset printing inks remains to be further adjusted. If each user makes special requests, the ink factory may not be able to cope with it.

5. Stability

For printers, the stability of the ink is also related to the quality of the printed product. When talking about the stability of offset printing inks, Director Lu of Beijing Guocai emphasized: “We have used some foreign brands of ink produced in the country. Although the ink formulation is the same as imported products, due to the production conditions and management of the domestic ink factory There is a certain gap between the level and the original ink production plant, resulting in some differences in the ink performance of the same brand and model.If the same red ink is used, the ink is transferred in the same proportion, but there is a clear color difference." Domestic ink and imported ink in the ink coloring There is still a big gap between the nature, the environmental protection and the drying speed, and domestic inks have poor fluidity and high viscosity, and sometimes they have to be removed. The printing factory hopes that the ink viscosity can be improved and gradually replace the imported high grade. High-priced ink. Mr. Zhu of Xinhua Daily also preached that newspaper printing requires high viscosity and low viscosity in terms of printing effects, and ink with good transfer performance, especially for high-speed printing presses, has higher drying requirements for ink.


The demand for environmental protection is "prosperous" potential

At present, environmental protection. Non-pollution has become an important prerequisite for more and more printing users to purchase ink. It can be seen that the environmental issues of ink have been widely concerned by manufacturers and users. It is understood that some large-scale ink factories have already passed the ISO14000 environment system certification. Of course, this does not completely explain the ink they produce is the true sense of environmental protection ink, but at least that the ink factory has been environmentally aware. For a printing plant, if the use of environmentally friendly ink does not cause the quality of the printed matter to decline and harm the worker's body, why wouldn't it be natural? However, in reality, most environmentally-friendly inks are expensive and the printing quality is unstable. The demand for environmental protection ink is also not great.

Offset printing ink is not environmentally friendly, mainly in its odor, especially ink. Mr. Zhu of Xinhua Daily stated: "The excessive ventilation of the newspaper printing shop will cause ink-flooding phenomenon. Decreasing the air volume will make the ink of the workshop too heavy. In addition, the humidity of the press workshop is relatively large, and many inks are still used for mineral oil. Solvents are used to make the inks and solvents in the printing room smell very odor and pose a threat to the operator's health. "But even so, newspaper printing still prefers traditional offset printing inks, because the current production of environmentally friendly inks is limited by the ingredients. Poor permeability, affecting the drying speed, is inconsistent with high-speed printing requirements. Therefore, users very much hope that the use of offset printing ink can not only ensure the printing effect, but also have environmental protection. Mr. Zhu believes that the environmental protection of offset printing inks used in newspapers is not ideal, and everyone's environmental awareness is indifferent and the press printing industry is not concerned with environmental protection requirements. I believe that with the introduction of relevant national policies, the printing industry will have more demand for environmental protection inks.

New ink popularity needs to wait

At present, there are more and more varieties of special offset printing inks and new types of offset printing inks. Among them, several UV offset printing inks are most familiar to most printing factories. In the interview, we also investigated its use.

UV offset printing ink is mainly used for printing gold, silver cardboard and plastic film base, so the packaging and printing plants use more, reflecting the problems are also more concentrated. Many users do not use UV offset ink directly, but instead mix it with common ink before printing on the machine because the UV offset ink dries too quickly. If the printer stops or runs slowly, it will cause the ink to crust on the roller.

High-fidelity six-color offset printing is a new process pursued by modern offset printing. The high-precision six-color overprinting system needs a new and improved CMYK ink, PANTONE Hexachrome green and PANTONE Hexachrome orange ink to create a wider printing color gamut. High-fidelity six-color inks have naturally become a new focus of offset printing inks. However, we have not received information on the use of printing inks from several printing companies interviewed.

From this point of view, the traditional CMYK four-color offset printing ink still has absolute advantages, and there is still room for development. New offset inks, such as UV offset inks. High-fidelity six-color inks and waterless offset inks, in order to separate the market for offset printing inks, in addition to the need for printing quality stimulation, the performance advantage is also the key to highlight the market.

The author's postscript: From the printing factory, we learned about their needs and opinions on the existing offset printing inks. The problem that domestic ink manufacturers urgently need to solve is to continuously stabilize and improve the quality of existing products, and to improve the quality of raw materials for ink production and the manufacturing process. , To achieve high-quality, serialization, and strengthen communication with users, while meeting market requirements, continue to develop new products in line with the development trend of the industry.