Ester Soluble Gravure Printing Ink

Brief Introduction
The ester soluble gravure printing ink is a polyurethane-based composite ink that is developed on the basis of phenyl ketone ink. It is an environmentally friendly product and allows convenient use. So, it is applicable for different conditions, and it is especially suitable for package printing. Moreover, this special ink also delivers satisfying performance in some special fields, such as thermal lamination industry.

Advantages
1. This gravure printing ink uses ester and alcohol as the solvent rather than benzene or ketone, thus meeting the requirements of environmental protection and sanitary standards.
2. The ink is able to generate bright images with good dot reproducibility, and it fits for long-time printing. Additionally, it can be treated by the doctor blade easily.
3. Our product is applicable for special purposes (retort pouch, etc.) if corresponding curing agent is added, and the remaining two-fluid ink is reusable.

Applicable Substrates
1. Polyester (PET): The surface tension should be over 50dyn/cm2.
2. Nylon (NY): The surface tension should be over 52dyn/cm2.
3. Polypropylene (BOPP): The surface tension should be over 38dyn/cm2.

Diluent and Printing Viscosity
1. The medium-drying solvent is applicable for full (or solid) printing and halftone printing under normal circumstances. As for slow-drying solvent, the remaining solvent and sticky-dirty phenomenon are two major concerns.
2. The printing viscosities for color ink and white ink are recommended to be 14-18 second/ZC#3 and 13-16 second/ZC#3, respectively.

Application Range
1. For all kinds of printing plates, the gravure printing ink inside the recessed cells could be directly and easily transferred to the substrate, perfectly displaying images with color intensity of 5%-100%.
2. The ink viscosity is recommended to be a little higher when larger depth (≥45μm) or lower printing speed (≤80m/min) is adopted.
3. For low-speed or high-speed gravure printing press, our ink could be adjusted on the basis of specific application in order to get the best printing effect.

Cautions
1. The ester soluble gravure printing ink shall not be mixed and used with other inks.
2. This product is manufactured from ester soluble polyurethane resin, and ester is the factual solvent. To make our ink more suitable for printing jobs, ester content in the diluent shall be 70% or higher.
3. Whether our product is resistant to boiling or steaming mainly depends on the applied pigment type, and please make verifications before boiling or steaming.
4. The packaging gravure inks named with “A” are steaming resistant series, but the steaming resistance involves different factors including ink, adhesive, film, laminate structure and more. So, before use, the process conditions must be confirmed through necessary experiment.
5. For packages that need steaming, the adhesive strength of laminates should be taken into consideration. For nylon structure, 2-5% CHINK-6900 curing agent (calculated according to the total amount of ink) needs to be added when printing white background or large-sized color pattern. After the addition of curing agent, the ink shall be placed for 24 hours before lamination to enhance the curing effect, which in return helps to improve the adhesive strength.

Detail types of the Ester Soluble gravure printing ink
Please see the attached list: types and properties of the Ester Soluble gravure printing ink

Notes
1. The technical suggestions are based on our experience and expertise. They are true and reliable, but not guarantees because the working condition and process flow are not controllable to us.
2. Before commercial production, please check out whether our gravure printing ink fits for your equipment and the end product.

Note:
"Level of sun-proof" has been classifies from Level 1 (lowest) to Level 8 (highest)
The condition of "streaming" is 121℃/30mins

Notes:
1. "Level of sun-proof" has been classifies from Level 1 (lowest) to Level 8 (highest)
2. "Light packaging" means the printing ink of this type is not suitable for boiling or straming.