Cover Story Why is rotary offset claiming its
position in flexible packaging? Web Offset printing entered the flexible packaging industry in the early 2000’s. The technology on film laminates has been confirmed as food safe for more than 15 years already and is gaining momentum in 100% solvent-free printing. It addresses the need for decarbonisation of the print industry. Additionally, as energy prices are rising disproportionally, offset has a substantially lower energy consumption. Is it therefore justified to conclude that electron beam offset with its high print quality and lowest cost becomes a winner asks DG press owner Remko Koolbergen.
he global packaging market continues to show phenomenal growth. Though industry forecasts vary, there is consensus that a growth of 15% until 2025 may be expected. This growth is the result of trends for more differentiated packaging variety and fragmentation, smaller family sizes, and more languages. The increasing variety in SKU’s leads increasing pressure on the competitive position of packaging printers who face shortening run lengths and short throughput time till a job can be taken ‘on press’.
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Consumers are putting a bigger emphasis on personal health, which leads to a healthier lifestyle, increasing the demand for sustainable and circular packaging solutions. Newly developed packaging materials must contribute to the reduction of environmental pollution by avoiding the use of fossil hydrocarbons like solvents where possible.
An aspect rarely mentioned is the (un)necessity of the use of solvents in printing inks. Solvent- based inks contribute strongly to the emission of Green House Gases. A conservative prediction is that we use around 225 billion m³ globally of Ethyl Acetate, commonly used solvent in printing inks. It is difficult to imagine how much that is. It equals 1,400 Suezmax size mega tankers who can carry 160 million liters each, which equals 5.5 million tanker trucks. Putting in line, that is a total length of 70 million km. This would span the world 2.2 times, every year.
On top of the huge energy use of hot air dryers and incinerators, it illustrates the inconceivable impact of solvent-based printing in terms of VOC and CO2
emissions.
Is there a solvent-free sustainable answer with low energy consumption at hand? The simple answer is yes. In fact, it has been proven for over 15 years.
DG-AUXO SLEEVE OFFSET
One answer to undo the environmental problem of solvents is the sleeve offset technology. Initially developed by Drent Goebel, launched in 2003. Over the years sleeve offset with Electron Beam curing (EB) matured into a robust and economically proven print technology for packaging, offering the highest print quality. Line screening of 200 or 300 LPI comes for free, it is for this reason that printed security documents like banknotes, stamps, passports etc. are exclusively printed in offset.
DG press is the successor of Drent Goebel and started its operations in 2009.
In 2015 the second-generation sleeve offset was developed by DG press, and today, DG press launches its newest 3rd generation web offset press: the DG-AUXO 900.
Sleeve offset in packaging is successful running in over 150 presses worldwide. Most users have multiple press systems, convinced about the combination of economic success, print quality and sustainable advantages, distinguishing themselves for brand owners.
Given the strong increase of energy prices due to the current global geopolitical tension and the economic slump resulting from that, offset technology is adding even more economical
value to the packaging printing business. Offset printing can be used for all common film and foil substrates. Substrates down to 12 microns can be driven in the same register accuracy as a CI flexo at high speeds.
Above all, offset is the only standardized printing process that has an ISO standard. It is very consistent in its repeatability. Colour is made in pre-press, not on-press. For this reason, colour matching is given by the offset plates and pre-press, not by the ink colour in the canister, thus reducing start up. Therefore, offset can be considered as a ‘digital’ process, where machine parameters safeguard colour consistency, not the press operator.
Due to its accuracy and consistency, offset is ideal for Extended Colour Gamut printing (ECG) with six or seven colour process. Especially in the fine vignettes with its micro dots of 10 microns printable to a 1% screen is where offset is unrivalled. It can run the full colour spectrum without colour changes, ink-wash-ups with its related annual ink spill and hard-cake waste. Gravure and Flexo cannot, or only at excessive machine costs meet ECG requirements, because dot gain and register position colour-to-colour are unrivalled in offset.
When printing in ECG with offset, you can combine multiple SKUs in one and the same print run together on one web, still warranting true colours:
Economic benefits are not the only difference in offset. Time to market can be as short as within 1 day as pre-press is mostly done in-house, and plate making is a matter of 20 minutes per job, any new job or plate change can be on-press within an hour after received the new files. The colour profile of the job is sent via a CIP interface to the press, each print unit has the preset ink profile already on press. The job can commence without any further operator prep work.
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April 2022
www.convertermag.com
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