VERPACKEN-AKTUELL

Water-based gravure printing: working together for a sustainable future

Collaboration of BOBST and Siegwerk on Water-Based Ink Systems

09. März 2021

Messrs Shuhui Sun (right) and Bo Zhang (left), process engineers at Bobst Changzhou, examining the technical print sample printed on the new BOBST RS 3.0 HS gravure press using Siegwerk water-based inks in Bobst (Changzhou) Competence Center.

Quelle: BOBST

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Messrs Shuhui Sun (right) and Bo Zhang (left), process engineers at Bobst Changzhou, examining the technical print sample printed on the new BOBST RS 3.0 HS gravure press using Siegwerk water-based inks in Bobst (Changzhou) Competence Center.

Quelle: BOBST

High sol­vent use in gravure print­ing is per­haps the biggest hur­dle to over­come in or­der for this sound tech­nol­o­gy to main­tain its strong po­si­tion longer term. With in­creased gov­ern­ment reg­u­la­tion glob­al­ly and pub­lic opin­ion fa­vor­ing new green­er tech­nolo­gies, the fu­ture op­por­tu­ni­ties for gravure are des­tined to be cou­pled with more sus­tain­able man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­nolo­gies aimed at mak­ing al­ter­na­tive green­er process ap­pli­ca­tions more ef­fi­cient.

Wa­ter-based inks present a long list of ben­e­fits and have al­ready been suc­cess­ful­ly de­ployed in oth­er print­ing tech­nolo­gies, in­clud­ing off­set litho, flexo and dig­i­tal. Wa­ter-based inks great­ly re­duce VOC emis­sions as these most of­ten con­tain a max­i­mum of 30% sol­vents in the for­mu­la. Not only does this re­duc­tion pro­tect our plan­et from pol­lu­tion, it also makes for a safer and health­i­er work­ing en­vi­ron­ment for op­er­a­tors.

How­ev­er, un­til now the use of wa­ter-based ink sys­tems has been very lim­it­ed in the gravure mar­ket due to the longer dry­ing times, low­er press speeds and poor per­for­mance on sub­strates. But as reg­u­la­tions re­gard­ing VOC emis­sions, es­pe­cial­ly in Chi­na and the SEA re­gions, are now re­strict­ing pro­duc­ers of flex­i­ble pack­ag­ing on the type of inks they can use, there is a push in the mar­ket to de­vel­op inks with­out sol­vent and print­ing press­es that can han­dle wa­ter-based inks ef­fi­cient­ly.

BOB­ST is de­vel­op­ing suc­cess­ful wa­ter-based ap­pli­ca­tions on its gravure press­es, uti­liz­ing Sieg­w­erk’s new for­mu­la­tion WB inks. The part­ner­ship with the ink man­u­fac­tur­er aims to present ink for­mu­las that will set un­prece­dent­ed per­for­mance and qual­i­ty lev­els in gravure print­ing, and which have much low­er VOC con­tent than cur­rent WB of­fer­ings on the mar­ket.

Ini­tial­ly the ge­o­graph­i­cal scope for this project is Chi­na, where gravure is a ma­ture and dom­i­nant tech­nol­o­gy, and where the gov­ern­ment has in­tro­duced par­tic­u­lar­ly strin­gent reg­u­la­tions. As of July 2020, a tri­al im­ple­men­ta­tion re­gard­ing com­mod­i­ty pack­ag­ing print­ing for gov­ern­ment pur­chase in Chi­na rec­om­mends that the con­tent of VOCs in the ink used is not to ex­ceed 5% by weight, and no more than six col­ors should be print­ed on each pack­age. “It is time to re­think pack­ag­ing and let wa­ter-based inks flour­ish in a cir­cu­lar pack­ag­ing sys­tem. A wa­ter-based ink sys­tem is a more en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly and green tech­nol­o­gy, es­sen­tial for the fu­ture of the ink in­dus­try,” com­ment­ed Jim­my Goh, Head of Tech­ni­cal Flex­i­ble Pack­ag­ing Chi­na.

“The main ob­jec­tive of the part­ner­ship with Sieg­w­erk is to in­crease the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of gravure print­ing and en­able flex­i­ble pack­ag­ing con­vert­ers to com­ply with new reg­u­la­tions,” said Jonathan Giu­bi­la­to, Prod­uct Line Man­ag­er Gravure. “Sus­tain­abil­i­ty is a core pil­lar of BOB­ST’s vi­sion of the fu­ture of pack­ag­ing print­ing, and it is es­sen­tial that com­pa­nies in lead­ing po­si­tions work to­geth­er to ad­vance en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly-friendly so­lu­tions and es­tab­lish a bench­mark for new tech­nolo­gies.”

The new BOBST RS 3.0 HS gravure printing press.

Quelle: BOBST

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The new BOBST RS 3.0 HS gravure printing press.

Quelle: BOBST

BOB­ST is also con­tin­u­al­ly push­ing press tech­nol­o­gy for­ward to meet and even ex­ceed de­mands for more sus­tain­able so­lu­tions. The BOB­ST RS 3.0 PLUS gravure press com­bines high-speed and qual­i­ty with wa­ter-based inks with­out com­pro­mis­ing on qual­i­ty. It was in­stru­men­tal in earn­ing Bob­st Changzhou a cer­ti­fi­ca­tion as a Demon­stra­tion and Train­ing Base for Al­ter­na­tive Ap­pli­ca­tions to VOCs in the Pack­ag­ing and Print­ing In­dus­try from the Print­ing and Print­ing Equip­ment In­dus­tries As­so­ci­a­tion of Chi­na (PEIAC).

The re­cent­ly launched BOB­ST VI­SION RS 5003, which is the next evo­lu­tion of the NOVA RS 5003, a very suc­cess­ful gravure press in the Asian mar­ket and be­yond, runs at 450 m/min and is ful­ly com­pat­i­ble with wa­ter-based inks. Amongst the many fea­tures that con­tribute to more sus­tain­able pro­duc­tion are high ef­fi­cien­cy, ex­tend­ed twin flow dry­ers and ven­ti­la­tion sys­tem for en­er­gy sav­ings, unique winders with en­er­gy re­cov­ery, and Low­er Ex­plo­sion Lim­it (LEL) sys­tem to avoid emis­sions into the at­mos­phere, along with the abil­i­ty to print on thin­ner and more eco-friendly sub­strates. The press also fea­tures an in­creased lev­el of au­toma­tion, help­ing to en­able wa­ter-based, high-speed print­ing.

“Putting to­geth­er BOB­ST’s ex­ten­sive and long ex­pe­ri­ence in gravure print­ing press tech­nol­o­gy and Sieg­w­erk’s strong ex­per­tise and knowhow in print­ing inks means that we can de­liv­er a vi­able and much more com­pet­i­tive so­lu­tion for WB inks,” con­clud­ed Jonathan. “To­geth­er, we will lead the way in in­no­va­tion in wa­ter-based gravure, as BOB­ST ac­cel­er­ates the im­ple­men­ta­tion of our fu­ture vi­sion for the pack­ag­ing print­ing in­dus­try – built on au­toma­tion, dig­i­tal­iza­tion, con­nec­tiv­i­ty and sus­tain­abil­i­ty.”

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