At the 11th Beijing International Print Information Exchange Conference held on November 28th, 2008, 18 speakers introduced new technology, new processes, new equipment and new materials for the printing industry this year. Among them, 3 introduced the most Popular technology - inkjet printing. Yang Bin, vice president of Beijing Peking Founder Electronics Co., Ltd., asserted: “In the past, we always used inkjet printing as a supplement to traditional printing. Now it seems that digital printing, represented by inkjet printing, will challenge traditional printing and establish one of the mainstream printing methods. A report from the British Paper Printing and Packaging Technology Research Association (PIRA) shows that in the coming years, many printing methods will show negative growth worldwide, and digital printing alone will show a rapid growth trend."
Technology: significantly better than other digital printing technologies
In the field of digital printing, inkjet imaging technology is superior to laser imaging technology. From the perspective of inkjet printing nozzles, drop-on-demand inkjet is better than continuous inkjet. “The industry’s fastest growing technology is digital printing,†Yang Bin said. "In the field of digital printing, there are two typical technical solutions: one is laser imaging technology; the other is inkjet imaging technology. Comparing these two technologies, inkjet imaging technology has the most potential for development in the field of digital printing. ".
From the viewpoint of printing speed, electrostatic laser imaging has a speed bottleneck. The world’s fastest color television electrostatic laser imaging speed is more than 100 A4 pages per minute; inkjet imaging speed is 2000 A4 pages per minute, and the content of each page is different. From the point of view of color and color groups, the maximum amplitude of electrostatic laser imaging is A3+. It is rare to see more than A3+ and the manufacturing cost is rapidly expanding. The inkjet imaging nozzle adopts the splicing method, which can do large-format and large-format color. Four-color, six-color, and seven-color. You can complete the stitching. From the perspective of media adaptability, electrostatic laser imaging is contact printing, generally limited to paper media; and inkjet printing is non-contact printing, there is a gap between the print head and substrate media, a wide range of media, paper, metal plate, film, Wood, even surface irregularities, can be printed using inkjet printing. From the perspective of operating costs, toner costs are high, ink costs are low, and the cost of inkjet printing is lower than that of electrostatic laser imaging. From the point of view of hybrid printing, electrostatic laser imaging cannot be combined with traditional printing online, and inkjet printing equipment can be installed on traditional printing equipment. For inkjet printing, the head technology is divided into two categories, one is continuous inkjet; the other is on-demand inkjet. In contrast, on-demand inkjet is significantly better than continuous inkjet, so the current application is mainly on-demand inkjet.
Yang Xiaoyong, a customer manager of Xaar Corporation in the UK, believes that digital printing has four advantages: 100% continuous workflow, variable data printing, no need to make, process or clean film, screens, plates or rollers, shortening the cycle time .
Applications: Great for Printing and Industrial Applications
In the field of large-scale printing, billing, and direct mail, there has been a huge potential for commercial development in the field of commercial printing and publishing. Yang Bin demonstrated at the conference the latest analysis report of the British Paper Printing and Packaging Technology Research Association (PIRA). The global inkjet printing market forecast? The report shows that inkjet printing is mainly used in the printing and industrial fields. The printing industry includes large-scale printing, commercial printing, publishing, printing, billing, direct mailing, labeling, and packaging; and industrial fields including food, medicine, electronic printing, and mechanical manufacturing. In these two fields, inkjet printing technology has a very wide range of development prospects.
Yang Xiaoyong believes that inkjet printing is suitable for almost any package, because inkjet is not related to substrates, such as stickers and reel labels, flexible packaging, tinplate printing for cans and decorative containers, aluminum beverage cans , Aluminum aerosol cans, plastic covers, plastic containers, security printing, handbags, blister packaging, cartons, etc., have great potential for development.
This year's drupa exhibited a large number of inkjet printers.
Outlook: Inflation printing is expected to account for 25% in 2015
Challenging Screen Printing and Flexo Printing Will Open Up in Industrial Applications The drupa printing exhibition held in Germany this year is known as “Drubat for inkjet†because of the large number of inkjet printers on display. Inkjet printing has become the hottest technology this year, and it is also the industry's most promising technology. Yang Bin asserted: “In the past, we always used inkjet printing as a supplement to traditional printing. It is now increasingly clear that digital printing, represented by inkjet printing, will challenge traditional printing. The first and foremost is screen printing and flexo printing. ."
Yang Xiaoyong quoted data from European printing industry consulting agencies: By the year of 2012, the digital printing market will achieve significant development. Most kinds of packaging will use digital printing for 20%-50%, and drop-on-demand inkjet will become the mainstream process. .
Yang Bin said that some manufacturers announced that the single-sheet inkjet printing cost will soon reach 1 cent/A4, and the offset cost point of offset printing will reach 10,000, it can be said that more than 75% of the world's jobs will be more Suitable for inkjet printing. Therefore, experts in the industry believe that “inkjet printing is no longer a supplement to traditional printing, but it is expected to become another mainstream printing method after offset printing, gravure printing, flexo printing, and screen printingâ€. In addition, inkjet printing will also make great achievements in industrial applications.
The report of the British Paper Printing and Packaging Technology Research Association (PIRA)? The forecast of the global printing market is the development trend of various printing technologies in the coming years in the world. The report shows that in the future, many printing technologies will show negative growth, while digital printing alone will show a rapid growth trend.
Another report of the British Paper Printing and Packaging Technology Research Association (PIRA) shows that by 2015, inkjet printing is expected to account for 25%, so the development speed of inkjet printing is very fast.
