Siegwerk involved in greening UV/LED print

Siegwerk has joined forces with member Stora Enso to improve the deinkability of UV/LED cured prints. Based on investigations Siegwerk has developed a UV/LED offset ink system for coated and uncoated types of paper.

Siegwerk said the new UV/LED offset ink system with deinking properties on various paper grades is comparable to the deinkability of conventional oil-based sheetfed offset inks. “Present standard UV/LED inks often lead to large hydrophilic particles leaving visible traces on the recycled paper. That’s why we have focused our research resources on finding enhanced solutions for this problem and improving the recycling of UV cured prints,” said Thomas Glaser, head of technology sheetfed at Siegwerk. As low-energy curing UV inks (iron-doped UV, LED-UV) are gaining more and more market share, the problem has reached new dimensions and has increased the need for further advancements of UV inks and the UV printing process. Since 2017, the partners have been investigating the deinkablilty of different ink formulations developed by Siegwerk and have examined the different inks’ behaviour with standard UV, LED-UV as well as irondoped UV curing such as LE-UV, H-UV, HR-UV and LEC-UV. “Our goal has been to develop UV/LED solutions for all UV technologies that show good deinkability similar to traditional offset and gravure inks without any loss in ink performance and printability,” added Glaser. The deinkability has been checked using the Ingede method 11 (01/2018) and the EPRC scorecard, the industry standards for deinking testing and evaluation. To share knowledge and further drive discussions around the use and disposal ofUV/LED cured prints, Siegwerk plans a roadshow to inform customers about the requirements and challenges and to present the latest research results including the company’s enhanced UV/LED ink system.