Advantages of Flexo Printing on White Coated Cardboard

With the continuous improvement of the flexographic printing supporting technology, the configuration of corrugated board ink printing presses has gradually improved, and many domestic paper product processing plants have successively introduced high-net-line anilox roller ink printing presses. This helps to further promote the use of coated white cattle paperboard more widely used in corrugated carton packaging.

In the early paper packaging industry, coated paper was usually used only in the offset or preprint area. Because the characteristics of the coated paper itself is most suitable for offset printing. The traditional corrugated paper printing and packaging are also limited to rough cowskin paper and white-nosed paper jam, the product is just some of the print content of a simple print. Because the traditional corrugated ink and ink printing machine configuration is limited, the traditional water-based ink is used, and it is technically difficult to overcome some common technical problems when printing coated paper materials. Since the surface of the coated paper has a coating layer, the coating layer fills the fiber connecting pores on the surface of the paper jam. After the ink is printed on the surface of the coating, the wet ink hardly penetrates the sealed coating and penetrates into the paper jam. Therefore, it is difficult for the ink on the printing surface to be dried by penetration, but only by natural evaporation. Therefore, the ink printing on coated paper is mainly reflected in the difficulty of drying the ink. Ink drying is slow, which can easily lead to a series of problems such as imprinting, smearing, overprinting, discoloration, rewetting, and slow printing speed during the printing process.

Because the coated white cattle paperboard has a high-gloss printing surface and a full and bright coloring effect on the printing, it also has a clear print on the paper surface, and the overall printing effect is bright, which is beyond the ordinary white cow paperboard. Therefore, it is more attractive to use coated white cattle paperboard printing on outer packaging cartons. Therefore, end users of many branded packaging boxes are also happy to use coated paper as the outer packaging box. There are many domestic carton users who have exported goods or sold domestically. The original use of white cattle paperboard has been switched to coated white cattle cards as outer packaging boxes.

In addition, the packaging market is also developing in the other direction of reducing product costs. Some users of large carton sizes, with simple layout design and low precision requirements, have also gradually converted their original offset printing boxes into corrugated direct flexographic printing. Due to the high cost of offset printing and the post-processing process, which is time-consuming, offset printing is limited by the width of the printing press, and cannot print wider width products. There are also toxic ink binders and solvents used in offset printing presses. Harmful to human health, not suitable for environmental protection requirements. Flexographic printing uses environmentally friendly inks. Due to the advantages of flexographic printing and flexographic printing technology, the printing level is close to that of offset printing. Therefore, the market share of flexographic printing products in the packaging market is increasing year by year. The development trend of packaging printing will be more environmentally friendly and cost-effective. , saving the processing time of the flexible version of direct printing based. Due to the awareness of environmental protection, in the more developed economies of Europe and the United States, most of the outer packaging cartons are flexographic, while products exported to Europe and the United States are more popular and easier to accept.

Driven by the potential of the packaging market, many domestic paper mills have successively introduced topping coated white paperboards (grey whiteboards) based on recycled waste paper to meet the needs of the market. However, at present, the domestic paper mills are generally subject to the limitations of technology and raw materials, and are affected by the conditions of the tensile strength, folding resistance, smoothness of the paper, and uneven coating stability of the paper, and can only produce recoated high-gloss noodles. Cloth white cardboard. Although these papers are cheaper in terms of unit weight, they are still technically difficult to use in current flexographic printing. Common is the poor folding resistance, due to the thickness of the paper, the coating is also thick, the crease is very easy to break, burst edge. Because of the thick coating, the coating is easy to fall off, poor ink performance, ink drying is more difficult, drag flowers, superposition, decolorization, pollution, rewetting, slow printing and other issues more serious. When the heavy coated paper passes through the hot plate of the cardboard production line, the surface coating is easily scratched and polished, resulting in irreparable defects and causing many headaches for the print producer. In fact, these dull whiteboards are designed for offset printing and are not suitable for direct flexographic printing of corrugated paper.

Over the years, Finnish forestry has actively participated in and promoted the development of domestic corrugated board printing technology. In order to make it easier for corrugated cardboard packaging manufacturers to overcome the difficulties in printing production, Finland Forestry's Jianmei Paper Factory developed and launched a light coated white bull card between white and heavy coated papers. paper. Jianmei Paper Mill is the world leader in the production of coated white bull card. It has the most advanced paper production technology and equipment in the world. The raw material used is 100% native wood pulp fiber material in Finland without adding any Recycling pulp. Advanced technology and production equipment combined with high-quality raw materials naturally produce stable quality and first-class products. The products produced have high quality, high break-resistance, high breakage resistance, high tensile strength, high tightness, high smoothness and other physical properties of quality indicators, products from 110 grams to 250 grams. Jianmei’s low-weight products can completely replace domestic high-weight products under the physical performance test. The utility model has the advantage of being converted from the price per square area per unit area and its practical value compared with some domestic high-weight products.

Light-coated white cattle paperboard not only has the advantages of printing paper, but also has the characteristics of easy printing of white cattle paperboard. The product structure of light-coated white cattle cardboard is a layer of 7 g/m2 coating layer added to the white cow cardboard. Because the lightly coated coating is very thin, it is not easy to crack and powder off. At the same time, the excellent coating is very uniform, and the high quality coating based on white porcelain clay can make the ink better adhere to the paper surface. After the paper is printed, the ink can be quickly dried in a short time, which can avoid problems such as dragging on the printing surface, difficulty in superimposing, discoloration, and rewetting.

The development direction of Jianmei Paper Mill is to improve the printability of its products and increase its market competitiveness. Nowadays, in the corrugated paper box industry, competition is fierce and profits are low. In order to survive, businesses must focus on reducing the loss rate, increasing production efficiency, and reducing the processing technology. In order to meet the needs of the market, Jianmei Paper Mill recently launched a new product - micro-coating. The amount of micro coating is about 4 grams, and its characteristics are more suitable for ink flexographic post-printing. Due to its low coating, the ink drying speed is faster. Stacked colors, drag flowers and other thorny problems solved, it can easily connect the line pressure slotted die-bonding. Micro coating also has a good performance in the cardboard production line. Whether in the production of cardboard or printing and post-processing, the micro-coating is almost as easy to operate as ordinary non-coated white cattle paperboard, and the printing effect can still maintain the bright and vivid effect of the coated paper. Today, not only is the quality of printing required to be higher and higher, but it is also subject to cost and price constraints. The use of Finland's forestry, low weight and light weight coated white cattle card can reflect its practical value.

Source: China Packaging News