UV ink

The reason why ink jet printing can get a share of the traditional printing market is that its single printing job cost is lower. However, ink jet printing still cannot replace traditional offset printing or screen printing because its printing speed is not satisfaction. Now, with the advent of UV-curing technology, UV-curable inkjet printing has been greatly improved in terms of printing speed.

In fact, UV curing technology has penetrated all kinds of printing equipment, printing inks and printing materials (single sheets or reels, even textiles) into all-pervasive applications, making these new devices faster and more resolving power. For more printing materials, and a higher degree of automation. It can be said that it is UV printing technology that has saved inkjet printing so that it can be applied to new markets - new areas that have never been thought of and developed.

UV family re-expansion

1.The expansion of the UV printing market

If you participated in a recent printing exhibition, such as the ISA held in 2007, more than 10 UV printing equipments made their debut. At the SGIA held in the fall of 2006, more than ten UV printing equipments were introduced for the first time. In just one year, more than 20 new types of UV printing equipment have been introduced to the market. This unprecedented scale is a significant improvement for the UV printing market.

“We believe that the UV inkjet printing market will continue to grow strongly worldwide, and the sales rate of new UV printing equipment will increase by 30% per year,” said Tim Greene, head of large-format printing at InfoTrends/CAP Ventures. Improvements in multi-service selection, improved image output quality, environmental protection, and new markets such as the printing of hard surface substrates have made UV ink jet printing positive.

InfoTrends predicts that sales growth rate of UV-curing printing equipment will reach double-digit growth in 2010, and in 2010, sales of UV inks will surpass equipment sales and become the largest growth market in UV printing.

According to Grey Held, head of large-format print consulting services at the printing industry research organization Lyra, the UV printing market will grow by 38% in 2007, and major printing equipment manufacturers will continue to improve their UV printing equipment, such as printing speeds. With respect to the durability of UV inks, the application of these new technologies has opened new doors for a series of printing applications.

2. Breakthrough in UV printing technology

UV inks have short reaction time and low temperature requirements under ultraviolet irradiation. They can print a wide range of printing materials, but when printing with UV metal inks, they must be very accurate. Special printing color groups must be made of special materials, such as glass, Printing on ceramics, if it can well solve the UV printing process on the conductor, I believe the UV printing market will gain greater space for expansion.

3. Looking for UV Printing New Blue Ocean

Commercial printing companies usually rely on banner advertising and display rack advertising to obtain business, but those customers who provide printing orders to printing companies obviously do not meet these existing, limited forms of advertising. They hope to expand their business through continuous innovation and acquire new customer bases.

UV printing can be flexibly printed on hard or soft substrates, and it immediately wins in the highly competitive market. These innovative markets include: auto body printing, textile printing and printing, and printing. The hottest market is car body advertising. The previous UV printing process could not be realized. However, the flexibility of UV-curing printing is now fully reflected. Not only the hard body can be directly printed, but even the most complicated car row. The printing on the trachea is also handy.

4.Technical innovation of UV print head

Better print quality means finer jet ink droplets, which of course also include better control of jet ink droplets. In addition to increasing the print quality by continuously reducing the size of the ink droplets, it can also be achieved with a multi-gray print head. Currently, the most advanced printhead on the market includes Toshiba's grayscale that can be achieved in up to 8 levels, print heads with drop sizes from 6-24ppl, and grayscales that can achieve 6 levels of drop size. 3-40ppl Xaar OmniDot 760/GS8 printhead.

Extend the color gamut of UV inks

1. Become a Third Party UV Ink Supplier

The perfect performance of UV inks in printing is not only dependent on the ink itself, but also depends on various factors such as the print head, curing lamp, etc. It should be said that the results are produced simultaneously. At present, most UV inks are still supplied by UV printing equipment manufacturers, although companies like Sun Chemicals, Hilord, and Triangle Digital, as independent third-party UV ink suppliers, have begun to provide UV ink products to specific customers.

2. Add UV ink printing color set

Many UV printing devices only provide the CMYK four-color basic printing color group, and some printing devices are equipped with printing color groups such as light cyan and light red. Other devices have added color groups of orange, green, blue, and purple to expand the color gamut of printing inks.

Raster Printers' 4000 Series UV-curable inks are used on Daytona presses, while the RP-720UV printing machine adds an orange and blue color set to the CMYK four-color base color set. Gantinovations' Jeti 5024 UVRTR, as well as some Eastech Octra devices, offer orange and green color groups, while the Gerber Solara UV2 printer offers green and purple color groups.

In fact, for most UV printing devices, the most increased is the white color group. White ink can be used not only as a primer before printing but also directly for the printing of printed white texts.

Durst's Waters believes that the rapid growth of white ink demand is a matter of course, because white ink can meet more customer needs, such as more visual effects, more abundant business applications. Only inexpensive and simple UV curing can be used to print on almost any substrate.

Other UV printing equipment suppliers, such as Lüscher and Eastech, provide personalized spot color services to provide customers with personalized UV color printing group matching services. Although this service requires strict and high costs, The customer is very interested in this service.

Roger Walkley, inkjet product manager at Inca Digital Printers, said adding the spot color printing group is still a very large project at present, because the CMYK four-color color group is currently used for printing.

3. Development of Varnish

Varnish is also another emerging paint that is often formulated in UV printing. It not only expands the color gamut of ink, but also expands spot colors and white areas, helping UV-printed products compete with screen printing and offset printing.

4. The openness of UV ink technology
Walkley believes that the successful printing solution should be in terms of ink application flexibility. Compared with traditional solvent inks, UV inks have no obvious advantage. Because of the multi-polymerization (UV inks undergo photo-resin curing process) effects, inks Flexible handling after printing is very difficult, and only in the vacuum state can reduce the tension, so that the ink surface is sturdy. Therefore, whether the ink is flexible in the application process has become an important point.

According to Tony Fulco, a market development consultant for 3M Imaging's product center, “Whatever the traditional printing method or digital printing, the secret to success is to ensure the maximum possible openness of UV ink technology.”

Recently, 3M Multi-Purpose UV-curable Piezo Inkjet Ink Series 2700UV inks, jointly developed by Durst and 3M, are used in conjunction with Durst's Rho 160R Inkjet Press, equipped with a 62-inch round cylinder, which can be used in 3M. Good UV printing on inks and substrates. At the same time, 3M also launched its 2200 series of UV-curable inks for EFI VUTEk UV inkjet printing equipment.

Aellora Digital has been searching for hybrid UV semi-solid inks for its special UV printing equipment. The particularity of this ink is that the ink that is ejected is very hot and will become very viscous when contacted with printing materials, which makes each The drops must be very precise and do not shift. This eliminates the need for immediate full cure even when printing on porous or non-porous substrates. “When we use this ink, even if the ink is not completely conjunctiva dried, the droplets will not expand or cause splashes.” Aellora Mike Stoudt, president of Digital, said.

Long-term printing experience makes inkjet printers interested in single-channel inkjet printers. However, many printing companies prefer multi-channel inkjet printing that can store more ink and meet the needs of a variety of printing businesses. But from now on, the guardians of single-channel inkjet printing decided to change this situation.

Inca FastJet is a strong advocate of single-channel inkjet printing. As early as drupa 2004, Inca FastJet introduced an inkjet printing device with a resolution of 300 dpi. This device can output super large-format printing jobs per minute. With fixed-mounted or dot matrix nozzles, the printing material passes under the print head, and the ink ejected at a time can completely cover the entire printing job.

Aellora Digital offers a full range of solutions for single-channel printing. The company offers semi-solid inks. The SureFire TKMP1000 digital printing system can achieve a print speed of 250m2/h at 600 dpi x 600 dpi.

The future worth looking forward to

What factors limit the development of UV printing?

One of the points is to expand the color gamut of UV inks. These have become the goals that equipment manufacturers and suppliers are trying hard to solve.

For the future UV inkjet printing, the following aspects are worth our looking forward to.

(1) Third-party UV inkjet ink suppliers are gradually entering the market.
Ink companies, including Triangle Digital and Sun Chemicals, have been custom manufacturing UV-curable inks for specialized printing companies.

Hexion recently introduced its new product, HexiJet FlashCure UV Inkjet Ink. The biggest feature of this type of ink is that only a small amount of UV curing energy is required to enable the ink to cure while contacting the surface of the substrate. Compared to previous UV inks, very little energy can be completely cured. Curing easier means that UV printing can be performed on thinner substrates without worrying about curling, which of course means that higher printing speeds can be achieved.

(2) Although UV printing equipment achieves the same printing effect, it does not have a cost advantage compared to ink jet printers using traditional solvent-based inks. Therefore, UV printing equipment suppliers actively reduce the number of customers in order to expand their customer base. The cost of UV inks and printing equipment has become a top priority.