Gravure printing technology

In the European packaging field, many brand owners are committed to the improvement of printing quality, and gravure printing holds an absolute market share in various printing methods. Although the printing process tends to be shortened and digitalized, gravure printing keeps its unique market share because of its unique high quality and high quality, and it continues to develop. It is mainly used in publishing, packaging, decoration, etc. The three major areas become the dominant printing process for magazines, product catalogs, and packaging products.

Currently, in the packaging and publishing market in Europe, every step of the gravure printing process chain is continuously working to promote the development of gravure printing: equipment manufacturers and suppliers and printers are trying to improve their profitability through printing. Ink manufacturers have been developing and continuously introducing new products, while also doing their best to improve the quality and performance of gravure inks; the EU's latest environmental protection rules also agreed to use phenyl inks in gravure printing. To a large extent ensured the productivity of publishing gravure printing presses; the cost reduction ensures that the gravure printing process maintains its ability to compete with other processes, such as between the packaging field and the flexo printing process, between the publishing field and the offset printing process. competition. In the end, all this constitutes the impetus for the accelerated development of gravure printing companies in Europe, prompting them to invest in large gravure printing plants and large-scale integration between factories in order to obtain higher economic returns. At the same time, it also determines the future of gravure printing in Europe, including 60% of print magazines and 50% of catalogues. For gravure printing, it is imperative to reduce costs by maintaining the advantages of competing with other printing processes. The reduction in cost requires the ink manufacturer to guarantee that it will maintain or even create better print quality without adding any fees.

For the field of packaging printing with high added value, gravure printing plays an important role in the European market. For small ink manufacturers, there are many opportunities for the European packaging market. In the field of gravure printing, reducing costs also appears to be more important. Although magazine sales and sales have been relatively affected by certain regions and readers, the number of millions of publications issued is still relatively common. In the product catalogue area, European gravure has great potential for development. According to statistics, only Swiss furniture retailers

The IKEA family uses a gravure 150 million catalogue every year. The large amount of cost control in each area cannot be ignored, especially the main raw material paper in product processing. Many large publishers in Europe are working hard to reduce their spending on paper. At present, some manufacturers have taken concrete practical actions and started to switch to relatively cheap MF paper (finishing paper in non-coating machines), which has the same level of gloss and opacity as coated paper. However, tests have shown that the rough surface of the MF paper results in a slightly lower print density and less saturated color. Printers have made positive adjustments to the selection of paper and ink suppliers. At present, adhesives for reverse osmosis have been introduced, which can be applied during processing to achieve the pretreatment of MF paper; it can also be directly mixed in printing inks. In fact, a new reverse osmosis additive replaces the original additive to form a new ink.

In addition, the use of phenyl inks is very important. Benzene is the only solvent that can meet the drying requirements in high-speed gravure printing. It not only volatilizes quickly, but also has the effect of cross-linking with the paper components. In this way, the printing ink can be dried very well. However, in the new material registration classification, the European Union has not included benzene in the high-risk category, but it has, as it always has, automatically become a banned solvent in the gravure process. Faced with the problems encountered in the use of phenyl inks, ink manufacturers have made full use of existing conditions to carry out a series of improvements to help publishers use gravure printers for healthier use of phenyl inks, including the use of closed-loop systems to achieve benzene solvents. Recycling. According to ink suppliers, most of the demand now comes from the packaging gravure field. With the increasing demand for high-quality printing, the share of gravure in the field of packaging and printing has gradually increased. In Europe, in order to ensure that the brand's color samples, and improve the quality of packaging and printing, many well-known brands are to gravure to achieve product packaging and printing. According to the survey conducted by the European Gravure Association, half of the brand-name product manufacturers chose gravure as their only packaging printing process, and 20% chose flexo printing as their only packaging printing process. The main competitor of gravure printing in the field of packaging and printing is flexo printing, which is expressed in terms of quality, cost, and production efficiency.

The cost analysis study shows that the cost difference between the two is not significant, and it can also improve the economy and flexibility of gravure printing through technological innovation. For middle and low block packaging printing, the production cost of gravure printing is 1.5 to 2 times higher than that of flexo printing; while for high quality packaging printing market, gravure printing is only 10% higher than flexo printing, and in terms of quality, flexo printing products are fundamental Unable to compare with gravure. In fact, flexo and gravure in Europe's main competition areas are manifested in flexible packaging printing, flexo printing is more common in the field of paper packaging printing, and the advantages of gravure printing in film packaging printing are even more obvious. The survey shows that for food packaging, 86% of consumers are concerned about the design and printing quality of the packaging, and 74% of consumers are concerned about the placement of shelves. In short, in the field of packaging and printing, gravure printing will become the first printing method of brand-name products due to its high quality and high gloss effect. In addition, flexo printing no longer has obvious cost advantages in the high-end product segment, and the market share of gravure printing relative to flexo printing will be improved.



Source: newmaker