To understand today's hybrid UV technology, you must understand its history. In the mid-1980s, some visionary packaging printers began trying to combine traditional and UV printing - wet-wet UV coating on non-UV or traditional inks. At the beginning, everything was as perfect as people expected. The cured sheets looked shiny and felt dry, but soon, the gloss of these sheets would drop dramatically.
The thicker the UV coating on the surface of the print, the more the gloss drops, especially if solid patches of color are printed under the coating. Another reason that easily causes the adhesion between the ink and the UV coating is that the conventional ink sometimes cannot be dried under the UV coating.
Coating machine. Bill Bonallo, manager of sheet-fed sales and business development at IST USA, said: “The idea was to apply a layer of water-based or insulating paint to traditional inks and then dry them, which means that you have to Paper is fed to the printer twice."
However, compatibility issues between inks, primers, and UV coatings have again created conditions for the development of hybrid UV technology. By replacing the traditional oil-based or solvent-based ingredients in the ink with UV-curable ingredients, one can effectively solve problems such as reduced gloss and poor adhesion between coatings. Bonallo said: "The traditional pigments in the ink formulation, together with the UV linker and a photo-initiator kit, enable the hybrid ink to overcome the compatibility barriers with the operating characteristics of conventional inks."
By applying UV coating on the mixed UV ink, the user can get the desired effect, and they can use a multi-lamp UV curing unit to dry the mixed UV ink and UV coating in a single pass. With the continuous improvement of the printing company, it was found that UV drying lamps can be added between the UV coating layers to create a “half-dried†environment, and the gloss and adhesion of the ink can be further improved.
Today's Hybrid UV Technology
In recent years, hybrid UV technology has gradually become a hot topic. According to Bonallo, “When we started using hybrid UV inks in the days of co-curing, this ink was mainly composed of a certain proportion of UV and traditional elements. When the printing process improved, the mixed ink It gradually evolved into full UV ink."
This problem has nothing to do with printing accuracy, but is related to the consistency of the process. Bonall said: "The mixed ink A and the mixed ink B are not exactly the same. You may get a good set of inks on a printing press, but if you don't know the recipe, you can use another one. If the group of inks is placed on this press for printing, then it is possible to damage the rollers of the printing press. The entire printing industry should unite and define what is a true hybrid UV ink, so that people can know what they should buy. product."
In addition, Bonallo also recommends that people develop guidelines for the use of UV cleaning agents. He said: "The key is to clarify the parameters of the cleaning agent. The user must be able to match the printing cylinders, blankets and chemicals with the correct inks, coatings and solvents."