A Brief Overview Of Oil-Based and Water-Based Flexo Inks

Choosing ink for your flexographic printing projects is not a decision to be taken lightly. Furthermore, ink selection should not be based solely on cost.

The ink you chose should be dependent on a number of considerations, including:

• ·         Product use
• ·         Substrate
• ·         Image carrier materials
• ·         Chemical compatibility
• ·         Surface tension
• ·         Print speed

Furthermore, certain inks contain components that are subject to highly particular safety, storage, and handling laws, all of which should be considered when acquiring ink for your flexo print job.

Main Flexo Inks Types

Flexo inks are classified into two types that are regularly used in the printing industry:

1. Volatile Inks - Water, oil, and solvent-based inks that are set and dry by evaporation or absorption.
2. Curable Inks - UV/EB inks that set and dry when exposed to ultraviolet light or an electron beam.

For the purposes of this essay, we'll concentrate on two of the most common volatile inks to assist you to determine whether water or oil-based flexo ink is best for your print project.

Water-Based Flexo Inks

Water-based inks are considered the most ecologically friendly due to their short ingredient list, which includes:

• A body of water
• The color pigment
• Defoamers are those who make things that don't float.
• A small number of compounds aid in adhesion and drying.

They are also the safest inks to store.

Water-based flexo inks have a very high surface tension, often the greatest of any ink, making them useful for printing on extremely absorbent heavy-weight substrates such as corrugated packaging materials.

They are suitable for use with any elastomer sleeve.

Oil-Based Flexo Inks

Oil-based inks comprise the following ingredients:

• Pigments are a type of color.
• Hydrocarbons are a kind of hydrocarbon.
• Liquified petroleum (often soy oil and sometimes mineral oil)
• The solvents used to combine oil-based inks are extremely corrosive.

As a result, oil-based inks must be handled with extreme caution. They also come with safety and environmental instructions for storage, cleaning, and handling.

For example, oil-based inks emit volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which contaminate the air and endanger personnel and the environment. If you use oil-based inks, you must have a VOC containment and disposal mechanism in place.

Oil-based flexo inks should not be utilized with certain elastomer materials due to their components. When printing with oil-based flexo inks, hydrocarbon-resistant elastomer sleeves are commonly required.

Oil-based inks generally attach to materials through absorption. As a result, they work best when combined with substrates such as newspaper, which is extensively utilized in the publishing business.

Other Inks In Flexo

Maybe you're not a fan of water or oil-based inks – that's great! There are other different flexo ink solutions available, the majority of which are environmentally friendly.

• Vegetable-based inks - Vegetable-based inks are generated from an organic component, such as maize oil or soybeans, and are intended to minimize VOCs. Not to mention that they are easily recyclable and have a lower environmental impact after usage.

• UV/curable inks - We touched on this briefly, but it deserves a closer study. Under a UV light, these inks dry almost rapidly and emit 99.5 percent fewer VOCs. Unlike typical volatile inks, UV/curable inks eliminate the need for additional coatings and protectants, as well as the requirement for further coatings and protectants.

• Algae ink - What is it? That's correct. This ink is extremely sustainable, and it has a negative carbon footprint, which means it does more for the environment than almost any other ink discussed here. UV resistance is provided via algae ink.