Web printing systems are now being developed which will allow digital production of packaging with ink jet. Within the very diverse range of packaging applications, food packaging is in particular attracting much interest. The commonly accepted benefits of the digital process – i.e. cost effective short run printing, inventory reduction, versioning etc are the main drivers for the activity. The usual conventional print processes being displaced are flexography or gravure, often with solvent based inks or for some markets UV-Curing.With ink jet printing, UV-curing is the leading technology in developing this application, because of the excellent reliability of UV-Curing inks in the single pass web printing systems. There are, however, considerable challenges in developing suitable inks for these food applications, due to the necessity of meeting various odor, taint and extractables requirements. The difficulty of meeting these requirements with ink jet is heightened due to the low viscosity and consequently high monomer content and the high photo-initiator content of ink jet inks.This paper will examine the requirements in the applications currently under development and the ink considerations in this work.
Nigel Caiger, Shaun Herlihy, "Development of UV-Curing Inks for Food Packaging Applications" in Proc. IS&T Int'l Conf. on Digital Printing Technologies (NIP19), 2003, pp 261 - 264, https://doi.org/10.2352/ISSN.2169-4451.2003.19.1.art00063_1