Market Analysis of Intaglio Printing Inks

Gravure printing in the two major areas of Europe and the United States - publishing and packaging is almost equal, so water-based inks and solvent-based inks are leading the trend. However, in the country, gravure printing only stands out in the packaging market. Therefore, only solvent-based inks are used. This article intends to make a brief analysis of the current status and development trend of gravure printing inks.

First, the current market players
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At present, gravure inks on the market can be roughly divided into two categories: surface inks and in-print inks. The main performance of surface inks in the market is mainly polyamide-based inks for PE films and nitrocellulose-based inks for paper, and some are printed with vinyl chloride for aluminum foil printing. Copolymers are mainly composed of inks and alcohol-soluble polyurethane-based inks for pearlescent film printing. Ink printing inks are mainly chlorinated polypropylene-based inks for BOPP films and polyurethane-based inks for PET and NY films. î ‹î ‹î ‹î ‹î ‹î ‹î ‹î ‹
î ‹î ‹ As far as the market is concerned, the annual consumption of gravure ink is about 100,000 tons, including about 40% of surface inks; about 60% are printed in India. In surface printing inks, polyamide inks accounted for 70% of the market share, paper gravure ink accounted for about 20% of the market share, and the other accounted for about 10%. The former major market is concentrated in South China and East China. The major markets of the next major category, in addition to the above-mentioned two markets, include the Changzhou-based printing ink in the southwest, and the chlorinated polypropylene ink accounts for 90% of the market share, while the market share of polyurethane inks currently accounts for only About 10%, but this type of ink has many advantages, such as good versatility, can be made environmentally friendly, but also through technical efforts to do a single solvent system. If we can solve the price problem, there is great potential for development. The geographical distribution of such inks is not obvious.

î ‹ 2. Highlights and Difficulties of Market Players î ‹î ‹ î ‹î ‹î ‹î ‹î ‹î ‹î ‹î ‹î ‹î ‹î ‹î ‹î ‹î ‹î ‹

聚酰胺 Polyamide type table printing inks have a wide range of brands on the market, with uneven quality, huge price gaps, and a variety of uses. The mainstream manufacturers have a clear understanding of the application of the product and can also make appropriate recommendations to customers. The current market highlights include: pearlescent inks for PVC twisted conjunctiva, clear inks for VMPVC, and table printing inks resistant to cooking; the difficulty of such inks is the poor frost resistance in winter and weak PE film treatment. The adhesion on the surface is not stable, the shallow plate transferability on the white ink is not good enough, and some products with higher heat sealing requirements are incapable of handling.

î ‹î ‹ Paper Gravure inks are mainly used for cigarette packaging. In recent years, the entire tobacco industry has been making strategic adjustments. The total volume of the entire industry has not increased, and competition has been due to other printing methods (such as UV offset printing). Therefore, the entire paper concave has not been greatly developed. As far as the ink itself is concerned, the bright spots in the past few years may be only some inks with special decorative effects, such as gold and silver inks that approximate the effect of bronzing, fluorescent inks, etc. It is also worth mentioning that special Development of ketone-free, butyl-free inks. The difficulty of such inks is that the leveling properties of some inks are not good, and the storage of high-density inks is not very stable.

î ‹î ‹ Other notable forms of printing inks include alcohol-soluble milk film inks. The resistance of these inks is much better than that of the conventional surface printing inks used in the past, and can basically meet the requirements of milk packaging; however, due to alcohol solubility, the printing habitability has a higher dependence on the environment, sometimes when printing small layout patterns. It will be more difficult. There is also an alcohol-soluble pearlescent film label printing ink, the key to such inks is to meet the requirements of high-speed automatic packaging lines. For chlorinated polypropylene inks, because it corresponds to the mainstream BOPP printing in the flexible packaging market, it is currently the largest variety. From the actual use of the situation, the overall is a very mature product. The current major problem is that its residual solvent is too high to meet the requirements of many European and American food companies; in addition, the use of large amounts of aromatic hydrocarbon solvents in the printing process does not meet increasingly stringent environmental requirements; therefore, in the long run, This ink is destined to be eliminated. The main reason why it can survive at present is its low price.

î ‹î ‹ For polyurethane inks, although it is not currently in the mainstream of the inks in the market, but because it has many of the advantages mentioned above, if you can solve the price problem, I believe that in the ink market will be a revolution in 3-5 years The change. î ‹

Third, the development trend of market players

In the past two or three years, China's flexible packaging market put forward two major requirements for ink suppliers:

î ‹ 1. Generalization: At present, the ink used in the flexible packaging industry is basically an ink corresponding to a substrate, and the ink between various substrates cannot be used universally, resulting in an increase in inventory types, difficulty in management, and an increase in on-site operation procedures. , residual ink is difficult to digest and so on. In response to this situation, the ink industry has proposed two solutions:
î ‹î ‹ A, using an ink should correspond to a variety of substrates. This is a very difficult operation. At present, we have made some progress, but there are two major difficulties: the composite strength of some substrates is still not satisfactory, and the cost is high and the rigidity is high;
î ‹î ‹B, use universal colorant with different connection materials, plus on-site ink distribution system, which can meet the general requirements of flexible packaging companies. At present, it is not very difficult on the technical level. If there is a large soft packer working together, the cost barriers will be smaller and the promotion may be faster.

î ‹î ‹ The use of a general-purpose ink system can also bring another advantage: the color can be standardized and managed.

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A, the existing products to reduce residual: This type of work is mainly reflected in BOPP special ink. The main countermeasures adopted are: Use solvent-releasing binders as much as possible, add additives to facilitate volatilization of aromatic hydrocarbons, etc. The best result currently is that the amount of printed matter is about 1 mg/m 2 . However, since the binder system itself determines that aromatic hydrocarbons cannot be eradicated from the system, it is an ink that is bound to be eliminated from an environmental perspective.
î ‹î ‹ B, removal of aromatic hydrocarbons: the so-called benzene-free, because many large food companies in Europe and America in the internal control quality standards expressly stipulate that all packaging materials must not be added to aromatic materials. In order to meet this requirement, benzene-free ink came into being. This kind of ink is theoretically free of aromatic hydrocarbon solvents, but due to the storage, transportation of raw materials, manufacturing process and the use process will be more or less mixed with a small amount of aromatic hydrocarbon solvents, so the "no benzene" It should be understood that the content of aromatic hydrocarbon in the system is less than 1%. In addition, it should be pointed out that due to the normal printing speed, MIBK (methyl isobutyl ketone) is added to adjust the volatilization of the ink after removing the aromatic hydrocarbon from the ink. Speed, there is no clear definition of this solvent available or not. Therefore, flexible packaging suppliers must communicate with customers before use, whether it can accept a certain percentage of residual, because the smell of this solvent is relatively strong. It is also worth pointing out that the printability of this kind of ink is somewhat poor.
î ‹î ‹C, Alcohol Solvent System: Due to stricter residue requirements, major companies in the ink industry have also introduced alcohol-soluble inks. These inks do not contain aromatic hydrocarbons, nor do they contain ketone solvents. They contain only esters and alcohol solvents. They are excellent in terms of environmental protection, but the evaporation speed is difficult to adjust, and printability is much poorer. The reproduction of the corresponding exquisite patterns is much more difficult, and at the same time, due to the small amount of use, the production capacity cannot be achieved and the cost is high.
î ‹î ‹ D, water-based system: Water is an ideal environment-friendly solvent, but water-based inks are currently used only in paper (packaging and publishing). For non-absorbing, low-surface tension substrates such as films, There is still a long way to go for the development of market-acceptable water-based inks, such as the performance of the ink itself, the thermal stability of the substrate, and the fit of the equipment. But it can be pursued as a mid-term goal.
î ‹î ‹E, solvent-free system: One of these inks is a hot-melt type ink. Currently, there are laboratory results. However, to enter the market, we must do a lot of work on raw material synthesis, manufacturing processes, storage methods, and application equipment. Of course, UV gravure can theoretically be included, but no reports of UV gravure applications have been reported yet.

î ‹î ‹ Whether it is generalization or environmental protection, it is currently only in its infancy in China. In order to gain something, the upstream and downstream colleagues of the packaging industry need to work together.