The hottest reality tells us that inkjet printing

Reality tells us that inkjet printing is not necessarily environmentally friendly. Digital printing, especially inkjet printing, has always been considered an environmentally friendly printing process, and water-based ink is an environmentally friendly product, which is sought after by the industry and the media. But is this really the case? Not necessarily

according to the relevant reports of ing and the Department of advanced molecular science of Fudan University, in which EDE (International deinking Industry Association) participated, in 2010, a foreign enterprise producing high-quality recycled paper returned to exist independently and received some photo books printed by HP HP indigo. As a result, the enterprise delayed production for 8 hours because the recycled pulp could not be deinked, resulting in a loss of more than 100000 euros. Since then, the excess products printed by HP indigo have been removed from the recycling chain of printing paper by the paper mill and collected and treated separately. HP indigo has also become the first reported digital printing equipment that has brought trouble to paper mills

ingede especially emphasized that this report is not aimed at HP. In fact, almost all of the limit switches are only applicable to products printed by inkjet with water-based ink when the speed is not very high. There are some problems in recycling: when paper mills recycle waste paper and prepare for deinking to produce new, white paper, dyes and fine pigments cannot be removed. The result is that the paper fiber turns gray, and the paper mill needs to strive to meet the quality requirements. Especially for dye ink, this problem is more serious, because a little dye can change the color of the pulp, for example, a little red color can make the whole bleached pulp pink. According to ingede's report, at present, there is no dye ink that can be deinked in paper recycling. This ink is also the mainstream product in the current market, accounting for the vast majority of the market share

green printing and environmental protection printing should be a complete system engineering, not a headache, pay attention to the environmental protection performance and environmental protection indicators of one link and ignore other links. If environmental protection cannot be comprehensively considered, it may seem to be environmental protection, but it is actually the transfer of pollution. Just like using dye based water-based ink for printing, if the paper after use cannot be recycled, the waste caused in the later stage and the resulting non environmental protection are far from offsetting the little advantage of VOC emission brought by water-based ink. The final comprehensive result may be less environmentally friendly

however, many manufacturing enterprises have realized this problem and began to focus on developing new technologies to make it easier for inkjet inks to realize deinking

at the drupa exhibition, a new liquid toner technology from secon brought new dawn to the sustainable development of digital printing. This liquid toner uses different polymer systems and performs better: it is the first deinkable product produced by secon quantum technology, which is similar to dry toner in this regard. Ingede said that after the product is sold, the printed matter produced by this technology will be tested

at the same time, inkjet printing also began to implement deinking. At the drupa exhibition, ingede (International deinking Industry Association) and its partner sepiax, an Australian inkjet technology expert, jointly launched related products. According to reports, researchers have developed a kind of pigment particles with resin on the surface, which can be evenly distributed in water like standard pigments, but after printing, this kind of pigment will be adsorbed on different surfaces. They can be removed from the printed matter after printing. In the deinking process, the pigment particles will gather into clusters to achieve the size and surface properties required for deinking. The first laboratory test using this ink has been completed. In the experiment, uncoated paper and this new ink were used, and deinkable printing was realized without further optimization. Since then, this ink has been further improved to meet the needs of newspaper printing. It is expected that the first printing plant will use this ink for production this year

it should be noted that not all inkjet systems can achieve deinking treatment. At present, there are still some prints using water-based ink that can be deinked. These prints either use special coating paper to adsorb the ink, or apply it before printing, so as to ensure that the pigment particles of the ink solidify immediately (jetpress 720 of Fujifilm)

at the drupa exhibition, HP introduced a new generation of inkjet ink. Preliminary tests showed that this ink can be deinked for some specific and static load test papers. However, it should be noted that this test is conducted for a single print, and the ink coverage is relatively low. In the future, these inks must be further tested to prove that they can also be deinked on more typical printed matter

it is reported that so far, there are more than 40 products that have obtained deinkable certification. Ingede said that dry toner and solid ink (anhydrous inkjet, such as UV inkjet or wax inkjet) can be better removed from used paper in the process of producing recycled paper. In the future, with the continuous investment of manufacturers, it is believed that water-based inks that can be deinked can also be achieved. At that time, water-based ink may truly become a model of sustainable development