engleski

Analysis of methods appropriate for polymer substrate ink trapping

Flexographic printing technique is a technique with the most frequent application in the field of flexible packaging due to its recognized property of quick ink drying on non-absorbent substrates. The application of conventional, solvent based, inks is still widely spread at present, however, their replacement with the energy curable inks (UV curable inks) is constantly expanding. The application of these two types of inks enables two methods of printing: wet on wet ink and wet on dry ink. The values of the last ink trap on the previously applied ink are usually determined using the Brunner, Ritz or Preucil method. The mentioned methods were developed with the use of paper as the printing substrate. In this research, ink trapping was tested in respect to the combination of process inks used in flexography (YMC) and their sequence of printing on a polymer substrate. Densitometric measurement enabled the determination of values which were used in the calculation of trapping in the aforementioned methods. The obtained values of trapping were compared against the image analysis of overlapped patches.

flexographic printing; polymer substrate; solvent based ink; UV curable ink; trapping

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