The 21st century is a century of environmental protection. People have become increasingly aware of the importance of environmental protection for human survival and sustainable development. Launching green projects, developing green products, and adapting to environmental protection requirements are already imperative. With the appearance of various green products, it will inevitably require better green packaging and more suitable green printing materials and corresponding printing methods. Flexo is now in line with the needs of this era and is increasingly becoming the preferred green packaging and printing process at home and abroad.
In the past more than a decade, the reason why flexographic printing has emerged and developed rapidly in the field of packaging and printing at home and abroad, in addition to its own advantages and technological progress, one of the most important factors is that it has adapted to environmental protection and green packaging. Requirements, can be widely used non-toxic, non-residual solvents, non-environmental pollution of water-based inks, UV inks and alcohol-soluble inks. In 2000, during my visit to the United States, there was no place for flexo printing and packaging products. U.S. policies and regulations are very strict with respect to environmental protection and hygiene. Many products can only be printed with flexo printing or can only be printed with water-based inks and UV inks. According to statistics, in the United States, flexographic printing accounted for about 72% of the packaging and printing industry in 2000; in the United States, the growth rate of flexographic printing in the United States reached 6%, making its market share in the US printing industry rise to 23% to 24%. Recently, an exciting printing event emerged in Xi’an, a flexographic printing company. A well-known beverage company headquartered in the United States needs to print colored stickers of ten colors (both positive and negative colors). For the requirements of environmental protection, the original gravure printing was used. Now it is designated to use flexographic printing, and it is hoped that in mainland China, print. Through various aspects of understanding, they found the printing plant in Xi'an with skepticism and sent Australian experts responsible for the design of the label to Xi’an to watch the samples. After many efforts by the factory, they finally used water. The inks printed the first batch of products with excellent quality and fully met the requirements of US customers. The factory's good flexo equipment, serious and responsible work attitude and superb technology have won the user's satisfaction and praise. The application of photosensitive resin flexo plates not only significantly improves the quality of flexographic printing, but also limits the application of solvent-based inks in flexographic printing, promotes the development of green printed materials, and makes important contributions to reducing environmental pollution.
Ink is the largest source of pollution in the printing industry. The annual output of ink in the world has reached three million tons. Every year, the global VOC (organic volatiles) pollution caused by ink has reached hundreds of thousands of tons. These organic volatiles can form a greenhouse effect that is more severe than carbon dioxide, and they can form oxides and photochemical smog under the irradiation of sunlight, which seriously pollutes the atmosphere. This has caused widespread concern in various fields. Currently, only environmentally friendly green printing materials—water-based inks, UV inks, and alcohol-soluble inks—have been widely used in various printing methods.
Water-based ink is a world-recognized environmentally-friendly printing material, and is the only non-toxic ink approved by the US Food and Drug Association in all printing inks.
The biggest feature of water-based ink is that it significantly reduces the emission of VOCs (organic volatiles), thereby preventing air pollution, improving the printing operation environment and benefiting the health of workers. It can completely eliminate the harmful effects of some toxic and harmful substances in solvent-based inks on human body and the pollution of packaged products, and improve the overall environmental quality. It is particularly suitable for packaging and printing products that require strict sanitary conditions such as foods, beverages, and medicines. In addition, it not only reduces the risk of fire and hazards caused by static electricity and flammable solvents, but also reduces the residual solvent odor on the print surface.
Waterborne printing materials also include aqueous coatings and related auxiliaries. In recent years, domestic enterprises that produce water-based inks and other water-based printing materials have developed rapidly, and their technical quality has gradually matured. The gap with foreign countries is gradually narrowing, and they can basically meet the development needs of domestic flexographic printing.
UV radiation curing products (including UV inks and UV varnish) are highly praised as “new technologies for green industry in the 21st century†for their high efficiency, energy saving, solvent-free emission, no environmental pollution, and excellent product performance. Their safety has been The US Environmental Protection Agency agrees. In the past decade, UV inks and UV coatings have become increasingly popular. According to statistics, the flexographic printing UV ink used by the United States in 2000 has reached 3,500 tons.
UV ink is not only a solvent-free security ink, but also has many excellent characteristics, such as not easy paste version, clear dots, bright and bright ink, excellent chemical resistance, dosage and so on. The promotion and application of UV inks is not only conducive to environmental protection, but also will contribute to the improvement of the quality of flexo printing products and promote the further development of flexo printing technology.
The alcohol-soluble flexo ink is also a kind of ink with little pollution, and it still plays a very important role in flexo printing.
Because of the widespread use of environmentally friendly green printing materials, flexographic printing is receiving more attention in food packaging, pharmaceutical packaging, beverage packaging, tobacco and wine packaging, and daily necessities that are in contact with the human body. Market share is expanding and prospects are increasing. Look good.
Shaanxi New Century Printing Material Co., Ltd. is a Sino-foreign joint venture high-tech enterprise specializing in the production and management of green printing materials for flexo printing. It mainly researches, develops and produces water-based printing materials and UV printing materials. In 2000, it was recognized as a high-tech by the Shaanxi provincial government. The technology company also completed the registration of environmental protection enterprises and environmental protection products in Shaanxi Province. In the new century, the company is willing to work with domestic and foreign counterparts to make greater contributions to the development of more and better green printed materials and to promote the development of flexographic printing.
Source: Print Magazine