From The Environmental Perspective Of Flat Cigar Box Handmade Printing Ink Research And Development Of New Technology

From the environmental perspective of Flat Cigar Box Handmade printing ink research and development of new technology

Along with the development of technology and market, the printing industry of our country has made great progress in recent years: The four printing methods have different development, post-press binding linkage automation, color desktop publishing system has been widely used, graphic and text processing system open and digital has become the basic characteristics of the pre-press system, direct plate making technology and digital printing has become the development direction of the printing and publishing industry, and the printing industry related environmental protection laws and regulations are constantly improving... . However, compared with the developed areas in the world, there are still big gaps in the research and development of printing equipment, the environmental pollution of printing workshops, and the environmental protection of printing supplies, especially the printing ink with the largest consumption. All these bring great challenges and opportunities to the development of Chinese printing industry. For printing consumables, especially printing ink, it is a great opportunity to develop and produce a variety of new materials that meet the requirements of environmental protection. Fortunately, in the field of printing ink, the original formula, production process, raw materials, drying methods and other aspects of the transformation, have now been mentioned on the agenda.

Domestic printing workshop environment is not optimistic

At present in our country, in the printing process a large number of the use of the ink is basically the solvent ink, these solvent ink organic volatile is not processed, directly into the workshop air, not only the production environment causes a certain impact, to the health of the workers will also have great harm. This is because these solvent-based inks contain 50-60% organic volatile substances, in addition, in the actual production process is usually coupled with the diluent required to adjust the viscosity of the ink, so when printing dry, the total content of volatile components emitted by the ink is even as high as 70-80%.

According to the national standard requirements, the maximum allowable concentration of benzene in the industrial production workshop is 10mg/m3, toluene is 100mg/m3 and xylene is 100mg/m3. The average concentration of benzene in these printing plants exceeds the national standard by 2.2 times, toluene exceeds the national standard by 4.2 times, and the average concentration of xylene also exceeds the national standard. From a medical point of view, this can cause great and irreversible harm to the health of the printer.

In addition, in the actual production, in addition to the natural volatilization of solvents, the printing environment is affected by the application of ink failures, such as the "flying ink" phenomenon that has troubled the printing industry for many years. The phenomenon of flying ink is because when the printing press rotates at a high speed, the ink film between the ink rollers is split and elongated, resulting in fragments. Under the action of the ink surface tension, these fragments shrink, forming a large number of small spherical ink drops scattered in the air, namely the so-called flying ink phenomenon. The great harm brought by flying ink phenomenon to the printing process is mainly reflected in the following aspects: environmental pollution, adverse impact on product quality, long-term damage to human health.

In addition, the latest research results show that the excess of other heavy metals in real production will also lead to the deterioration of the printing environment, and even affect the health of operators.

In a word, in the printing industry, the discharge of harmful gases, the use of harmful liquids and solids and the discharge of waste, all pose a serious threat to human health and living environment. This environmental problem not only relates to the future of human civilization, but also to the survival and development of enterprises. Therefore, we must consider the printing industry environmental protection issues, draw up practical and effective measures.

Relevant current measures abroad are worthy of reference

In foreign countries, in order to limit pollution, some countries have formulated a series of laws and regulations such as "labor health Law" and "organic solvent discharge Law". These laws and regulations determine the printing process and ink research and development direction. Under the pressure of these environmental laws, foreign printing industry research departments and manufacturers have to develop solvent-free ink, that is, non-volatile or less volatile ink.

European and American countries passed the volatile organic solvent (VOC) law related to environmental protection around the 1990s. VOC laws require printing houses and ink manufacturers to meet the following requirements: there should be no odor of organic solvents outside the workshop; The concentration of volatile substances must be below 50mg/m3 (VOC), 100mg/ m3 (CO) and 100mg/ m3 (NO) in the workshop.

Although this strict environmental protection law is only adopted in Europe and the United States, it will sooner or later become the benchmark of environmental protection law in the world. For most domestic manufacturers (including printing plants and printing supplies manufacturers), this legal requirement is currently difficult to meet. However, through efforts, the author believes that the following problems can be solved at present:

* Promote the use of ink cleaning agent;

* Develop new alcohol-free smoothies for offset printing adapted to high-speed rotary offset presses;

* Strictly check the components contained in the ink, can not use the pigment containing harmful heavy metals to produce ink, to ensure that workers are not harmed by heavy metals, and further improve the quality of ink, reduce the generation of flying ink;

* Some harmful substances are recycled through the recycling device;

* Install solvent recovery device on rotary gravure printing machine to reduce VOC volatile emission;

* In gravure, flexo and screen printing, try to use water-based inks (water-based inks) or UV-curable inks as a solvent. This has the potential to reduce VOC problems while also minimizing the alcohol content of water-based inks (usually containing 5% alcohols).

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Ink the latest development direction to see hope

In the production and development of ink, in order to meet the requirements of VOC laws, western countries have made great improvements in the ink formula and drying system. There are more types of ink used today, which is also the new direction of the research and development of printing ink in the author's opinion.

A. Radiation curing ink

In fact, UV-curable inks were developed as early as the 1940s, but only in the last 20 years have they taken off. Because the ink does not contain solvents, there is no VOC problem, the printing process is friendly to the environment.

But UV-curable ink cost is higher, the use process is more complex than conventional ink. UV curable ink is characterized by environmental protection and fast, this is due to the use of active diluent (monomer) to adjust the ink viscosity, volatile organic compounds in the active diluent component is very low, compared with ordinary ink environmental advantages are very prominent; Compared with water-based ink, water-based ink mainly uses water as a thinner, the drying speed is relatively slow, and UV-curable ink drying speed is very fast. Since there is no volatile component, such as solvent or water, the color and printing characteristics will not change. During the printing process, UV-curable ink is easy to keep the color and viscosity stable. Once the ink is adjusted before printing, the adjustment work on the printing press is very small, and there is no need to add other additives. When the printing is stopped midway, the ink on the ink roller and the roller will not dry and crusted. The dry UV ink layer surface has very high wear resistance and chemical stability, and has a high hiding power and gloss. UV technology can bring higher economic benefits, such as improving production, delivery time, space saving, printing quality bright colors, high image clarity, whether from the perspective of environmental protection or technology development, UV ink has its broader application prospects.

In general, UV curable ink is not only used in lithography, it can be used in a variety of traditional printing methods, including relief, lithography, screen printing, advertising inkjet ink has also begun to use UV curable technology. Therefore, the use of UV technology can print a very wide range, such as paper printing, plastic printing, tape printing, circuit board printing, electronic parts printing, metal surface printing, aluminum foil surface printing and so on. It also includes many kinds of special packaging printing inks that can produce special effects and are used for decoration, such as: UV scrub ink, UV ice ink, UV foam ink, UV wrinkle ink, UV embossing ink, UV gem ink, UV glazing oil and so on. If the substrate surface with metal mirror luster, the screen printing process will be UV ink printed on the surface, after ultraviolet drying equipment light treatment, can produce a unique visual effect, elegant, solemn, luxurious, mainly used in high-grade exquisite chic tobacco, wine, cosmetics, health products, food, medicine and other packaging printing.

From the perspective of production, at present, there are not many manufacturers that can really produce and provide UV-curable ink in China, especially high-grade UV-curable ink is scarce. Many high-grade users choose to use imported ink for high-grade printing operations. This is also a new direction for the development of domestic ink manufacturers. If domestic manufacturers have research and production in this respect, then he will open up new market space, and it also has a great market potential.

Continue to improve the existing UV ink, is also one of the challenges facing the industry. This includes improving the curing speed, how to solve the adhesion, how to solve the contradiction between the hardness and flexibility of the ink film, how to meet the printing suitability of various printing processes and so on.

In addition, water-based UV curable ink is currently the forefront of this field, domestic manufacturers involved in this field are very few.

B. Water based ink

Water-based ink is based on water-soluble resin as the bonding material, mainly water as the solvent of the printing ink, has long been used in flexo printing, gravure printing, screen printing, and recently began to be used in waterless offset printing. In foreign countries, water-based flexo printing ink has been widely used in newspaper printing, water-based gravure ink also began to replace solvent-based ink, but this trend is slowing down.

There is no doubt about the environmental performance of ink and wash. Some major international companies require the use of ink and wash as printing ink. For ink painting, the study of its various formulations to achieve the best printing suitability, to meet the final printing of various resistance requirements, as far as possible to reduce the cost of ink production, research and development of new water-based resin bonding material, even research and development of a new assistant, and so on, has become a new topic of research and development at home and abroad.

For various problems in the existing ink painting, such as the wettability of the pigment, the grinding and dispersing of the pigment during production, the storage stability of the ink painting (no layering, no precipitation, no flocculation), the rapid drying and adhesion of the ink painting on the substrate material (especially the non-absorptive plastic and metal surface) in the printing process, the dilution of the ink painting and so on. It's still being worked out.

In terms of our country, at present, high-grade ink is basically occupied by import ink, the part of our country manufacturer produces some low-grade ink. That is to say, the research and development of ink painting and production in our country is still in the initial stage. Both developers and producers are promising, because there is a huge business opportunity.

C. Vegetable oil-based ink

In this field, it is mainly the application of soybean oil based ink in offset printing ink.

For the latest technology of ink, traditional ink research and development also have a lot of work to do, such as: traditional offset printing ink resin binder further improvement; Further increase of brightness without affecting dryness; The use of environmental protection soybean oil based rotary offset printing ink further improvement; Improve the color of offset printing ink, make the ink film more bright and so on. In addition, for anhydrous offset printing ink also need to do further improvement and research, although in anhydrous offset printing ink, water has replaced vegetable oil and mineral oil as the solvent, the development of water-based offset printing ink, but this technology is still in the initial stage of research. In addition, there are a variety of special ink research and development, such as conductive ink, magnetic ink, lottery ink, passive luminous ink and so on.

In short, with the progress of The Times and the development of science and technology, printing industry and ink production industry will face a series of new challenges. At the same time, these new challenges will also bring new opportunities for the printing ink industry, relying on technology to continuously develop new inks, to better adapt to new needs, create better printing products, and promote the further development of printing enterprises, as well as the industry as a whole.