The emergence of new inks is a good news for many people. They can help printers meet different production requirements and meet severe marketing challenges. Ink and substrate (usually paper) and printing press together are called the three major elements of commercial printing. With the increasing color printing, the role of ink in the printing process has become increasingly important. People always want prints to show rich and vivid colors. This is a very arduous task, because the printing inks that the printing factory can choose are very limited, and because of the pressure of competition, they also have to constantly improve their productivity.
Currently, there are four major trends that are driving the ink industry forward: environmental issues, the use of energy-curable inks and coatings, the growth of digital printing, and the increasing market demand for high-quality, high-productivity inks. In all areas, printers have found that ink performance can have a major impact on their economics.
Trend 1: More Environmental Protection
Environmental issues are the main driving force for ink innovation. As an environmental website points out, “The printing industry should consciously improve its environmental performance because printing, like most industrial processes, requires the use of many harmful chemicals and energy, and generates a lot of waste. These factors have accumulated. This will have a serious impact on air, water, and land. In addition, printing houses are subject to various regulations promulgated by the national and local governments."
Although substrates have become a top priority for environmentalists (because the papermaking process consumes a lot of energy and trees), inks have attracted widespread attention from printers seeking to achieve sustainability.
According to statistics from the National Association of Printing Ink Manufacturers (NAPIM), the profitability of the ink manufacturing industry in 2006 was only 1.9%. Therefore, the industry needs to strengthen the supply chain through various channels. Cost control. The rapid increase in ink raw material prices caused by product shortages has forced many ink suppliers to abandon the production of conventional inks and turned their attention to other lucrative markets.
The market for ink raw materials has embarked on the path of globalization, and ink manufacturers can choose the right products for themselves worldwide. However, spot trading of ink raw materials will still be affected by the trend of international prices. Therefore, no matter where you go, ink manufacturers must find alternative materials that can produce the same quality of ink to reduce the environmental impact of ink production.
Trend 2: Energy Curing Trend
If you look at the press conferences of major ink companies in 2007, you will find that energy-curable inks, especially UV and UV/traditional hybrid inks, have become a new trend. The reason why the market favors energy-curing inks is mainly due to the following reasons:
Lower energy use and no VOCs;
Instantaneous cure facilitates post-processing of prints;
Stronger durability and higher print quality.
In addition, UV-cured inks can be printed on almost all substrates, including plastics without voids, and it is very easy for printers to switch from traditional inks to UV-curable inks. The growth rate of energy-cured inks has become the fastest growing indicator in the ink manufacturing industry. Although the fixed costs for installing UV light sources have now declined, they still require significant investment by printers. Although many new presses are ready to use UV or mixed inks, the operator still needs to reset the ink roll of the press.
The cost of energy-curing inks themselves is about two to three times that of traditional inks, and because of the safety issues of certain raw materials, they also require different treatments. If a printer only considers the price per pound of ink, then it will not choose UV and mixed ink. However, from the point of view of the total cost of printing, the prospects for the development of energy-cured inks are still very optimistic.
Although UV inks are suitable for all printing presses, they are the most important for large format digital printing. According to statistics, at least 25% of commercial printers currently use digital presses for production. In most cases, these printers mainly use digital presses to print short prints, variable data print jobs, and commercial prints such as brochures or direct mail.
Despite this, there are still many printing companies that are expanding their customer base with large-format or ultra-large format printers that can be used to produce signs, banners, exhibitions, and point-of-sale images. In these applications, water-based and solvent-based inks do not stand the test of long-term exposure to inclement weather. Therefore, UV inkjet inks have become the best choice for people. In addition, UV inks not only print directly on hard and non-porous substrates (for example: foam boards, Coroplast, Sintra, glass and wood, etc.), but also have greater resistance to moisture and sunlight than other inks.
Trend 3: Quality Factors
Printing customers always want to get high quality prints that meet the specifications. For example, they want to use highlights to enhance the texture of cars and jewelry and other valuables. In addition, they also want to use ink to make their print stand out in many similar products.
At the same time, printers hope to streamline their workflow with ink. These inks must be stable in high-speed printing - this will reduce the number of press adjustments and improve print consistency. In addition, the printing company also hopes that its own inks have the features of easy cleaning and the ability to shorten the preparation time.
No matter which process is used, printers hope to print the most products with the least amount of ink. Obviously, this is a contradictory requirement. The printing company should not only maintain the impact and saturation of the printing color, but also reduce the use of ink. The best solution is to increase the strength of the pigments, and many ink manufacturers have promised this requirement. But this will undoubtedly increase the ink manufacturer's production costs. In addition, too much pigment can affect the fluidity of the ink and hinder its performance on the press. Every printer knows clearly that if the performance of the ink is not as good as expected, the entire printing process will be affected by downtime, waste, and rework.
Trend 4: Enlargement of Color Gamut
It is well known that the traditional printing process using yellow-green and black-primary inks encounters difficulties in reproducing full-color images. The recent advances in prepress and ink manufacturing have brought printing companies the ability to expand their print gamut. In addition to standard four-primary inks, printers can now use light green, red, and blue inks in color printing. Therefore, when the prepress system can divide the image into seven colors, the added primary colors must also bring higher saturation, purity, and consistency to the printed image to ensure the success of the printing production.
We see that the United States has begun printing inks with larger color gamuts, including some ink manufacturers designed to meet the needs of a single customer.
The importance of color management is also increasing. Advertisers and brand owners have invested a lot of money in brand building, and color plays an important role in brand image.