Ink Staying Strong

New inks are appearing at a healthy clip, helping printers meet myriad production and marketing challenges, inks are an essential element in the triumvirate of commercial printing, along with the substrate (usually paper) and press. It can be argued that the role of inks is increasing in importance as the use of color continues to expand. People want their printed product to match the abundant and varied colors that nature provides. That's a daunting task, given the limits of available, safe chemistries that can be printed with the high levels of productivity that a printer requires just to be competitive.

Four major trends seem to be driving most of the developments in the ink industry: environmental concerns, increased use of energy-cured inks and coatings, the growth of digital printing and increased demand for a combination of quality and productivity in inks. In all these areas, printers are seeing that ink performance can have a dramatic impact on their bottom line.

One of the most influential drivers for ink innovation is environmental concerns. As one environmental Website points out:

“The printing industry doesn't need much encouragement to improve its environmental performance … Printing, like most industrial processes, uses a wide range of potentially hazardous chemicals, requires energy and generates waste, the cumulative impact of which can be substantial, affecting air, water and land. Beyond that, printers are under intense scrutiny from federal and local regulators.”

While substrates have been the first target of environmentalists due the massive quantities of energy and trees consumed in the paper making process, ink increasingly faces attention as printers strive to implement more sustainable practices.

Offset lithography remains the most commonly used printing process, with an estimated 65% of the market. Typically, offset inks contain pigments for color and a vehicle composed of a varnish that likely contains solvents, resin, drying oils, waxes and other additives. Ink makers increasingly are reviewing their formulations to take out volatile organic compounds (VOCs) thought to be damaging to the environment, as well as substituting less risky pigments, such as those based on heavy metals. Ink manufacturers also are looking to replace non-renewable, petroleum-based materials with renewable oils such as soy, linseed and other vegetable-based products.

With meager industry earnings estimated at just 1.9% in 2006 by the National Assn. of Printing Ink Manufacturers, the ink industry is definitely looking for ways to gain control over its supply chain and costs. Run-ups in the prices of raw materials used in inks have resulted from shortages and the fact that some suppliers have simply abandoned ink components in search of other, more-profitable markets.

The market for these materials has become increasingly global, and ink makers are sourcing products from locations around the world. Spot bargains once found in local markets have been evened out by international trends in pricing and availability. Still, wherever they can, ink makers do seek substitute materials that produce equivalent quality inks with less environmental impact.

If you were to review the press releases of most ink companies issued during 2007, you would see a bevy of items about new and improved lines of energy-cured inks—especially UV and hybrid UV/conventional inks. The reasons are simple:

• Lowered energy use and no VOCs
• Instantaneous curing for immediate post-processing
• Durability and high print quality

Add to that the ability to print on almost any substrate, even nonporous plastics, and the move to UV-curable inks is a slam dunk. The growth rate of energy-cured inks is among the highest, though factors impede even faster growth. While the capital costs of installing UV lamps have come down, they still require considerable investment. Using only UV inks can require an alternative set of press rollers, though many new presses are being delivered UV or hybrid ready.

The inks themselves can cost two to three times as much as conventional versions, and must be handled differently due to safety issues created by some raw materials. If a printer were to consider only the per-pound price, they'd probably shy away from UV and hybrid inks, which combine the best properties of both conventional and UV inks. However, analyzing the total cost of printing with energy-cured inks develops a compelling case to adopt UV products.

While this is true on virtually all types of presses, nowhere is the use of UV inks more important than in large-format digital printing. It is estimated that at least 25% of commercial printers are now using digital presses in their operations. In many cases, the printers are using digital presses for short-run, variable data personalization, most frequently on commercially printed products, such as brochures or direct-mail pieces.

Now, however, many are expanding their customer bases by using large- or grand-format presses to produce signs, banners, exhibits and point-of-purchase displays. In these applications, aqueous and solvent-based inks cannot withstand prolonged exposure to weather. UV inkjet inks perform better here. And as an added bonus, they can be printed directly on rigid, non-porous surfaces such as foam board, Coroplast, Sintra, glass, even wood, and can withstand moisture and sunlight for longer periods than other inks.

Print customers expect high levels of quality that match specifications. They demand gloss, for example, to enhance a luxurious image of high-value items like cars and jewelry. Yet they want inks that will also control the slip when large amounts of the printed product are stacked together.

Printers, meanwhile, expect inks that will make their jobs easier. These inks must be able to remain stable running at high speeds—to minimize adjustments and ensure consistency. Printers also expect inks to be easy to clean up on press, shortening makereadies.

Across all processes, printers have been seeking ways to print more with less ink. Yet an apparently conflicting requirement is that print maintains vibrancy and saturation, appearing undiluted. Increasing pigment strength is the best solution, and many ink makers have obliged their customers—but only up to a point. The higher the pigment strength, the less ink that is required. But this raises the ink makers' manufacturing cost per pound of ink. Besides, too much pigment can alter the flow characteristics of an ink, inhibiting its performance on press. As most printers well know, if the ink doesn't perform as expected, the entire printing process succumbs to downtime, waste and rework.

It is well understood that process color printing with standard cyan, magenta, yellow and black colors has limits in being able to reproduce a full gamut of colors. Recent technological advances in prepress and ink technologies have given printers the ability to greatly expand the reproducible gamut. Inks have been formulated for use with the process colors to expand available colors to express color images with brighter greens, reds and blues. So, while prepress systems now allow images to be separated into as many as seven colors, the additional “process” inks also must deliver a higher level of color saturation, purity and consistency for the process to be used successfully.

We are seeing the first adoption in the U.S. market of these expanded gamut CMYK inks, including some specifically designed by ink makers to meet a single customer's requirements.

Color management also has grown in importance. Advertisers and brand owners have invested considerably in building brands, and color plays a key role in brand image equity.

Ink makers have responded by building large libraries of formulations based on color-matching draw downs to match virtually any requested color. Draw downs are often done on the exact substrate to be used in the run. The draw down is then measured to a precise degree by increasingly sophisticated color measurement tools, ones that are highly accurate, and often part of closed-loop systems that can adjust throughout the printing process. The ink formulas are then fed into automated dispensers that mete out precise amounts of base inks required to make a matching finished ink. Some ink manufacturers will set up in-plant ink operations. Based on a printer's volume of ink purchases, these in-plants also handle ordering, inventory and recycling or disposal of waste inks.

ONLINE: www.flintgrp.com, inxintl.com, efi.com, superiorink.com, transcontinental-printing.com, sunchemical.com and triangleinx.com