Current situation and market development trend of

The current situation of silk printing ink and its market development trend

ink always plays an important role in silk printing. It not only determines the quality of printing, but also affects the speed of printing. There are many characteristics of silk printing. The most fundamental point is that it has strong printing adaptability. People call it that it can be printed on all substrates with different materials and surface shapes, except that air and water cannot be printed, and the thickness of the printed ink layer can reach 60 μ m. It is four times the thickness of gravure ink layer. Therefore, there are many kinds of silk printing inks, and the ink series are very complex. At present, there are more than 1000 or 2000 kinds of printing inks in the world, and the consumption is very large. The sales volume of silk printing ink market in the United States alone is about US $125million. Although the substrate of silk printing is extremely wide, and the requirements for inks are different and very different, there is a common problem with universal printing inks, that is, the curing and drying of inks. At present, this problem has not been completely solved, which also affects the speed of silk printing. Now, the speed of screen printing brush machine can be improved, but when the printing speed exceeds 100 ~ 120 feet/minute, the printing ink dried by common oxidation and volatilization methods cannot adapt, that is, it is not easy to dry using the currently produced ultraviolet light fixing ink (UV ink for short). At present, the international community is paying great attention to the research of fast and pollution-free "green" ink and its curing and drying methods, trying to find a non thermal printing ink drying system. UV curing ink and electron beam curing ink are two kinds of inks with great market development potential in silk printing

1. Printing industry and printing ink consumption

compared with European and American countries, China's silk printing industry started late, and the research, development and application of modern silk printing technology began in the early 1980s. There are more than 30000 silk printing plants in the mainland of China, of which small factories (less than 40 people) account for 53%, large factories (more than 100 people) only account for 5%, and the rest are medium-sized factories (40 ~ 90 people), with about 150000 employees. The annual output value of silk printing is about 30billion yuan, with an annual growth rate of 15%. According to the survey, the average annual consumption of ink by silk printing plants is 782kg. The total annual consumption of printing ink in China is more than 20000 tons (including fabric printing paste), of which about 55% is imported printing ink. The larger the scale of printing plants, the greater the proportion of imported ink. There are two reasons for a large number of imported inks: first, the domestic ink manufacturing industry has few varieties and low output, which can not fully meet the requirements of users; Second, the quality of some high-end domestic inks is still unstable

2. Production and demand of printing ink

at present, there are more than 50 manufacturers of silk printing ink (hereinafter referred to as printing ink) in the mainland of China, more than 20 of which have a certain scale, and produce more than 30 varieties (including fabric printing paste, luminous, fluorescent, reflective and other special printing inks), with about 1500 employees. The annual output of printing ink is about 8000 tons, and the output value is about 240million yuan. However, special printing inks for special substrates such as tricolor inks and UV light fixing inks still need to be imported. Statistics show that the total annual sales of imported printing inks is about 450million yuan

the survey data fully shows that there is still a large gap between the output, variety and quality of domestic printing inks and the current market demand, and it is not compatible with the high development trend of China's printing industry, which maintains an annual growth rate of 15%. In recent years, some foreign companies with advanced technology have built ink factories in China, which will help improve the technical quality of printing ink production and the development of new ink varieties. For example, Youlian ink factory in Zhongshan, Guangdong Province, has a relatively complete variety and series of inks. Its products now on the market mainly include: plastic and rubber series inks, outdoor advertising series inks, alcohol resistant series inks for household appliances, non-toxic inks for children's toys, special packaging series inks, PCB series inks, metal, glass inks, UV plastic series inks, body advertising inks Film opening is based on the railway fastening system 8 (1) 0-year replacement cycle, including printing ink, pad printing ink, credit card ink, extra strong hiding ink and lottery ticket coating ink

in general, with the expansion of the application scope of printing technology in the industrial sector, the production of printing inks in China has achieved significant development. The variety and quality of printing inks can basically meet the market demand. It has not only solvent based inks suitable for various substrate materials, but also the newly developed water-based inks and UV curing inks, and some of them are of good quality. However, due to the wide range of printing substrates, such as metals, plastics, ceramics, glass, paper, leather, rubber, enamel, wood, textiles, non-woven fabrics, silk printing, whether flat or curved, requires a large number of inks that match the material of the substrate, so it can not meet the market demand one by one at present. In addition, there is a certain gap between the mainland printing ink and the international advanced level in gloss, color brightness, fineness, adhesion, smell and printing suitability. The main reason is that there is no complete variety of pigments, resins and other raw materials for the production of ink in China. In order to produce high-quality inks, some raw materials have to be imported, which also affects the development of China's ink manufacturing industry

3. Printing "green" ink development trend

some people say that the domestic development trend can usually be predicted from the development direction of foreign countries. This 5 Paper tensile testing machine: it is reasonable to say that paper needs to test tensile strength, ring compression strength, vertical compression, horizontal compression, edge compression, peel strength, etc. Like other printing methods, silk printing in mainland China, especially modern silk printing technology, started late, and there is still a certain gap compared with foreign advanced technology. According to the three new exhibits and information provided by drupa international printing exhibition, SGIA international silk printing exhibition and fespa European silk printing exhibition, the world is actively developing updated silk printing ink products, and is developing in the direction of high-speed, fast drying, non-toxic and pollution-free environmental protection "green" ink. Of course, the development of printing ink depends on the expansion of the application field of silk printing. At present, the application fields of world printing technology have been extended to the packaging and decoration industry, advertising industry, and special printing of building materials industry. These emerging industries require silk printing ink to meet the needs of the development of silk printing to large-scale, multi-color and combined printing. For example, printing large format outdoor advertisements or building materials requires multi-color overprint and rapid drying. Combined printing refers to the combination of finger printing and offset printing, gravure printing or flexographic printing to form glue wire printing machine or flexible wire printing machine. At present, such equipment has been sold on the international market. Due to the online production of rubber screen printing or flexible screen printing, printing ink is required to have a certain drying speed. In addition, at present, the combined printing method is mostly used for the printing of packaging products, so the ink is required to be non-toxic, tasteless and pollution-free. At present, there are three kinds of "green" inks that meet the above printing development requirements: one is water-based inks, and the other two are UV curing inks and electron beam radiation curing inks

4. Great market potential of water-based ink and electron beam radiation curing ink

water-based ink is also called water-based ink, and its English name is water basescreenprintingink. As the name suggests, water-based ink is a water-based ink system. Compared with solvent-based inks, it is solvent-free, non-toxic, tasteless and pollution-free, and meets the requirements of environmental protection. At present, the solvent based inks produced by the printing ink factory contain 50% - 60% volatile components. If the diluent required to allocate the viscosity of the ink is also included, the total content of volatile components emitted by the ink when the print is dry is 70% - 80%. The gases volatilized by these organic solvents not only have odor, but also some are toxic and harmful to human health. Germany promulgated the chemical products law as early as 1982, which contains three provisions: the protection of human body in the workshop, the protection of general health and the protection of the environment. The annual consumption of organic solvent based coatings (including bright oil and ink) in Germany is about 350000 tons, which is a huge number. According to the regulations of the government, the German Federation of industry proposed to reduce the total output of solvent based coatings by 20% - 25% within five years, so as to reduce the air pollution caused by 70000 ~ 90000 tons of solvents. Environmental protection laws and regulations are becoming more and more strict. The strict environmental protection law implemented by the European Economic Community in 1992 will become the benchmark of environmental protection laws all over the world. In 1996, Austria also officially issued a decree strictly restricting the addition of certain solvents and the composition of certain solvents in inks not higher than 5%, such as hydrocarbons containing benzene. For the Inca factory in Austria, it is bound to change the solvent based ink to water-based ink or UV curing ink. Under the pressure of environmental protection laws, European and American countries have forced research institutions and some printing ink manufacturers to develop solvent-free or low solvent content inks. Undoubtedly, water-based inks will be vigorously developed and continuously promoted. At present, countries that have used water-based inks to achieve good results include Switzerland, Germany and the United States. Printing plants that have begun to use water-based inks will undoubtedly have an absolute advantage in the market competition

(1) composition and structural characteristics of water-based inks

the binder of water-based inks is composed of aqueous colloidal or semi colloidal solvents and emulsions. Acrylate and copolymer are added to water in a precise way, and a stable binder system can be obtained by mixing and modifying with other additives, such as protective colloid. Adding pigments and auxiliary materials to this binder can produce water-based inks. The particles of the composite have certain characteristics, that is, they can volatilize and release water quite quickly in the process of forming the ink layer film, so they can form a dry ink film. The viscosity of water-based ink can be adjusted with water during printing. The used version can be cleaned with water, and the ink dry traces left on the version can be eliminated with detergent and recycled. However, the use of water-based ink requires that the screen printing plate must have water resistance, so it is necessary to use water-resistant sexy light glue to make plate

(2) the drying performance of water-based printing ink is as described above. Because water-based printing ink contains synthetic particles in the ink, the surface of the ink film can be dried quickly when its water is volatilized and released quite quickly. Therefore, under the standard room temperature of 20 ~ 22 ℃ and the relative humidity of 55 ~ 60%, it is best to use hot air to accelerate the volatilization of water. Especially for non absorbent substrates, such as soft or hard PVC and foil coated with self-adhesive, a continuous drying device should be used, and the temperature of the convective air at the inlet should be maintained at 70 ~ 80 ℃, so that the drying temperature of the stacked input prints is close to 35 ~ 40 ℃. For substrates of different materials, the drying temperature should be adjusted accordingly, so as to obtain better ink adhesion than solvent based inks. In addition, another measure to improve the drying performance of water-based printing inks is to add a small amount of crosslinking agent before the printing machine works to improve the stability of the aqueous system against dilution alkali and acid

(3) the development and application of water-based printing inks in China

the development and application of water-based printing inks in mainland China has attracted great attention from research departments and printing equipment manufacturers. At present, water-based printing inks have achieved good results in packaging printing. For example, Hubei Huanggang area has successfully developed a printing material