How much is green ink?

At present, our government departments and industry associations are accelerating green The implementation of printing , the use of green ink is the general trend. So far, the Ministry of Environmental Protection has revised and issued nearly 100 items of environmental labeling products (currently valid), and more than 200,000 models have passed the certification of China's environmental labeling products, especially since 2007. A series of Environmental labeling product standards for offset inks, gravure inks, inkjet inks, etc. Ink products can be certified by the Central Joint Certification Center and obtain the ink environmental identification certificate, and are recommended to enter the government green procurement directory, which effectively promotes the market access of green inks. At the 2016 China International All India Exhibition, China The Printing Technology Association has launched the 2016 edition of the Catalogue of Green Raw and Auxiliary Materials, which contains inks, varnishes, inkjet inks and other products to further advance the application of green raw and auxiliary materials.

With the increasingly strict regulations on government air pollution prevention and control, printing companies pay more and more attention to green raw and auxiliary materials. At the 2016 China International All-India Exhibition, ink manufacturing companies such as Bauhinia, Hanghua Ink, and Shengweike all brought their latest green research and development results. For printing companies, it is imperative to strengthen the end of the traditional production process, but it is more important to develop low-VOCs and VOC-free ink products from the source, which requires the cooperation of ink manufacturing companies. Currently, green inks generally include water-based inks, energy-saving UV inks, and vegetable oil-based inks. Below, the author will briefly introduce these three categories of green inks.

Water-based ink

Water-based ink is the world's recognized environmentally friendly printing ink, and is the only ink of all printing inks approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.

The absence of volatile organic solvents is the biggest advantage of water-based inks. It is only necessary to use water for dilution in printing. Therefore, the water-based ink greatly reduces the emission of VOCs, avoids the contamination of volatile organic substances, improves the printing environment, and does not cause harm to the health of operators. At the same time, it significantly reduces the hazardous substances remaining on the surface of printed products, and is one of the most compatible ink types. At the same time, as the main solvent of water-based ink, water is not easy to burn, tasteless and non-toxic, so it has high safety performance, does not cause pollution to the environment, and is conducive to the improvement of environmental quality. In view of the fact that the boiling point of water is higher than that of organic solvents, the drying temperature of aqueous inks is generally controlled at 90 to 100 ° C (the air volume is adjusted to the maximum, which facilitates the rapid discharge of moisture).

In recent years, with the application of high-performance water-based acrylic resin in water-based inks, the water-resistant resolubility, gloss and dryness of water-based inks have been further improved, which has gradually been promoted in the field of flexo printing and gravure printing. The development speed is accelerating, and the quality of ink is gradually recognized by printing companies. In addition, the use of water-based inks can also reduce the fire hazard caused by static electricity and flammable solvents, and reduce the solvent odor remaining on the surface of the printed matter, so the water-based ink is Applications in food packaging , children's toy packaging, and tobacco and alcohol packaging are becoming more common.

At present, Shandong Breit, Shanxi Essence, Flint Ink, etc. have launched a good environmentally friendly water-based ink.

Energy-saving UV ink

Energy-saving UV ink is a new branch developed on the basis of traditional UV ink. Its ink composition is similar to that of traditional UV ink. The outstanding advantage is that the energy of UV curing is significantly lower than that of traditional UV ink. It is no longer necessary to use traditional UV lamp when curing. Instead, LED lights or H-UV lamps are used. Currently, there are mainly LED-UV inks and H-UV inks.

When the conventional UV ink is used, the heat-dissipating tube switch lamp takes time, and ozone is generated, which is uncomfortable for the operator. The LED-UV ink can realize instant switching lamp curing at a single wavelength (365nm, 385nm, 395nm) without ozone, and consumes about a quarter of the power of conventional UV ink. H-UV ink is a hybrid UV ink with short-wavelength UV isolation technology, no ozone, infrared heat generation.