Flexo and gravure printing processes have their own advantages

2020-05-12 11:17:26

The development trend of flexographic printing at home and abroad

In the early 1980s, in order to achieve long-term sustainable development, the world paid more and more attention to environmental protection and green safety. The water-based inks used in flexographic printing are neither toxic solvents such as benzene, esters, and ketones, which are highly toxic in gravure inks, nor toxic metals in offset inks. In order to protect the environment and human health, food, medicine, health products, cosmetics, and packaging materials that are in direct contact with the human body are all expressly required to use flexographic printing. Developed countries in the Western Europe of the United States attach great importance to these measures, and flexographic printing as green and safe printing. As a result, flexographic printing has developed by leaps and bounds over the years. The original printing process was divided into three parts: flat, concave, convex, and lead printing. Flexo printing increased from 4% in the early 1950s to 28% in the late 1990s, offset printing decreased from 55% to 45%, and gravure printing increased from 30 % Decreased to 20%, and letterpress decreased from 10% to 2%. (See Table 1)

In China, flexo printing technology has developed rapidly from scratch. At present, there are more than 500 flexo production lines across the country, which has driven domestic flexo printing machines, anilox rollers, inks, and plate making equipment. R & D and production, the supply chain of the flexographic printing industry has been initially formed. The quality of flexo printing products has been significantly improved. Objectively speaking, it can be comparable to offset printing and gravure printing, and can meet the needs of packaging and other products. Therefore, it is mainly for packaging and printing services, and does not require a higher number of lines. It is enough to reach 150 ~ 70 lines. Nearly 100 flexo products from various provinces and cities across the country have been awarded 9 quality awards, 22 excellence awards and 24 masterpiece awards.

Regarding the quality of flexo products, Mr. Peter W. Dumm, the vice chairman of the German Flexo Association, once said: "As early as the 1982 Drupa printing exhibition, some people claimed that flexo printing is the same quality as offset and gravure printing. Almost no one doubts that flexo printing can achieve very high printing quality, and no one asks everywhere whether flexo printing can also print folding cartons. "

People in the industry in China and the end users of flexo products also hold the same view. As for what printing process technology is used, it depends on the user's needs and requirements for printed matter processing.

Features of relatively soft and gravure printing process

1. Gravure printing has the following advantages:

â‘ Excellent color reproduction quality

Gravure can reproduce a wide range of tones, and the color consistency of the entire batch of products is good. The direct contact between the printing plate cylinder and the printing material ensures more faithful adhesion of the ink, resulting in better color reproduction.

â‘¡Great flexibility and wide application range

Gravity printing has great flexibility, suitable for different printing materials, and can be widely used for solvent-based and water-based inks and various coatings.

â‘¢High efficiency

The gravure printing machine is famous for its high-speed production. At present, the maximum width has reached more than 4m and the maximum speed has reached 1000m / min.

â‘£High printing resistance and low relative cost

The gravure cylinder has a long life and is suitable for long live printing. The average printing resistance can reach 1 to 3 million times before re-plating. For large quantities of jobs, the relative cost of gravure printing is low.

Gravure printing technology is mainly used in packaging, publishing and special products in the world.

In the field of paper packaging, gravure printing is mainly used for the printing of folding cartons, flexible packaging, labels, wrapping paper and composite cans.

â‘ Fold the carton. In the folding carton printing method, offset printing and embossing are decreasing, while gravure and flexo are increasing. The proportion of gravure printing used in folding carton printing varies in different countries and regions. In China, the most widely used is the printing of cigarette packets.

â‘¡ Flexible packaging. Flexible packaging materials refer to paper, plastic film, aluminum foil composite materials and non-rigid materials composed of these materials. Flexible packaging has the advantages of low cost, portability and intuitive products. In the field of flexible packaging printing, gravure printing and flexographic printing are mainly used. In China, flexible packaging gravure printing dominates.

â‘¢ Packaging carton label. Packaging paper rolls and sheet labels attached to cans, unprinted cartons, composite cans, bottles and other containers, as well as labels, stickers, etc. Most of the paper materials are also used, and composite materials and aluminum foil printing .

In addition, there are areas of publishing and special products, such as grain paper, wallpaper printing, etc. At present, gravure printing is dominant in flexible packaging printing in China, and the production of gravure printing has grown rapidly, accounting for 1/4 of the entire printing method.

2. Flexographic printing has the following advantages:

â‘ Use multi-color printing on high-speed roll paper, can add a variety of combined processes (such as screen printing, offset printing, etc.), directly online processing, die cutting once forming, improve the speed and quality, thereby enhancing competitiveness;

â‘¡ Wide range of printing materials, from thin paper to thick paper (napkin to wine box), from thin plastic to thick plastic film (shrink film to credit card);
â‘¢ Fast speed, high quality, stable color, saving manpower (only one person per machine), high input-output ratio;

â‘£Environmental protection is extremely strong, because flexo printing mainly uses water-based ink, no pollution.

At present, China's printing industry uses the main solvent-based inks, of which VOC (Volatile Organi Co mpounds organic volatiles) emissions are large, and some inorganic pigments contain heavy metals such as lead, cadmium, mercury, etc., with certain toxicity, can not be used for food packaging, pharmaceuticals Packaging and children's toys. The biggest feature of water-based ink used in flexo printing is to reduce VOC emissions, thereby avoiding the pollution of volatile organic compounds, which not only changes the printing environment, but also benefits human health.

Suggestions on the development of flexo and gravure printing technology

Judging from the current status and development trends of flexo and gravure printing technologies at home and abroad, I think the following issues must be clarified:

1. According to the development of the market economy, especially the development of the packaging and printing industry, we must develop the production of flexo and gravure printing in our country on the premise of the needs of users. Development, there is no question of who replaces who, but the speed of development and the proportion of major issues.

2. In the future, regardless of flexo printing or gravure printing, it should meet the requirements of green printing and green commodity packaging.

3. In the future, the development of gravure technology must also use water-based inks or UV inks. Even if there are currently gravure printing companies that use solvent-based inks, the residual content of their solvents is not allowed to exceed the standard. Ketone etc. The content of heavy metals lead, cadmium, mercury content must comply with European 94/62 / EC regulations, and its metal concentration cannot exceed 100ppm (cumulative). In short, to make gravure printing meet environmental requirements.

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