In recent years, with the vigorous development of the printing industry, all kinds of printing have been constantly innovated. With the widespread use of computers in the printing industry, it has brought a tremendous technological revolution to the printing industry and greatly improved the quality and quantity of printed products. However, with the impact of high-tech technologies such as online publishing and printing, electronic publishing, and multimedia publishing, the market for traditional printing technologies is gradually declining, especially for offset (lithographic) printing. It is estimated that in the next few years, offset printing will account for Market share will fall by more than 10%. However, another type of printing in the printing industry, flexographic printing, has seen an unprecedented prosperity and a growing trend. This is mainly due to the fact that the services of flexographic printing are mainly the packaging industry and some anti-counterfeiting printing. The impact of publishing on the Internet, electronics, multimedia, etc. is not large. In addition, its printing technology, equipment, materials, etc. are constantly improving. Some high-quality prints are now comparable to offset printing. Therefore, it is now beginning to enter offset printing. Areas, such as newspaper printing. According to information provided by the American Flexographic Printing Association (FTA), in the United States, flexographic printing accounted for 33% of the total printing in 2000, and the output value of flexographic printing increased at an annual rate of 7%. In packaging printing, 70% of the products are completed by flexographic printing. Lithographic printing was reduced from 46% to 37%, gravure printing was reduced from 18% to 15%, and relief printing was reduced from 7% to 5%. The market share of flexographic printing in Europe has also increased, and its overall market share in printing is 27%. From the perspective of packaging materials alone, it also has a market share of about 50%. Because flexographic printing has the advantages of low investment, high profit, and wide range of printing materials, many printing experts predict that the 21st century is the golden period for the development of flexographic printing. Lithography, gravure printing, and flexographic printing will emerge. . Looking at its development process and looking forward to the future, it is deeply touching.
Flexo printing yesterday
Flexo printing belongs to the category of relief printing, which refers to the printing method of transferring ink through an anilox roller. The flexographic plate is a general name for relief plate made of materials such as rubber plate and photosensitive resin plate. Since the advent of flexographic printing in the United States in 1890, it has experienced a development process from elementary to advanced. At present, there are tens of thousands of flexo printing machines in the world, and various technologies are constantly improving. Flexo printing has become an independent printing process, which has aroused widespread concern from printers. Before 1920, flexographic printing was also called flexographic printing, because the ink used in this printing method was flexographic ink, and it was mostly used in the food packaging industry. However, the ink color component of this aniline ink is coal tar dye, which contains toxins, so it did not take long for the US printing industry to abandon this ink and switch to printing with water-based ink. . In terms of materials, before the 1950s, due to the poor image reproducibility of the plate and the toxic problems of the ink, the low-end packaging products such as carton boxes could only be printed with rubber letterpress. Americans once called the printers engaged in flexographic printing "the breeders of the bottom of the industry."
Mechanically, a series of factors, such as the thin body and poor stability of the early flexographic printing machines, greatly affected the wide application of flexographic printing. The use of cellophane (cellophane) in the 1930s greatly promoted the development of flexographic printing technology. In the 1950s, polyethylene was popularized in the field of packaging. In order to solve a series of problems such as the easy deformation and wrinkling of polyethylene materials, the flexographic printing process technology has once again been fully developed. In 1952, the American Flexographic Printing Association (FTA) was established. In the mid and late 1970s, with the advancement of science and technology, the advent of flexible photosensitive resin plates and cermet anilox rollers once again greatly promoted the development of flexographic printing.
Compared with gravure printing, offset printing and traditional relief printing, flexographic printing shows its charm from the beginning. The flexographic printing method has its own distinctive features, especially in packaging printing. It has an absolute advantage. This is mainly:
(1) Flexographic printing is pollution-free, which is beneficial to environmental protection. Because flexographic printing uses non-toxic water-based ink, it is non-toxic and non-polluting, which is not harmful to the environment and human health. It fully meets the requirements of environmental protection and can also meet the requirements of food packaging. And flexographic printing water-based ink is currently the only non-toxic ink approved by the American Food and Drug Association.
(2) Strong adaptability. In addition to various types of paper, flexographic printing machines can also print aluminum foil, plastic films, self-adhesive paper, self-adhesive films, cellophane, metal boxes, textiles, etc., and offset printing can almost only print paper. Now, the proportion of flexographic printing in the newspaper printing industry will also increase.
(3) Short cycle and low production cost. Compared with gravure printing, flexographic printing has a shorter plate-making cycle, 80% lower plate-making costs, 30% less ink consumption, and 40% less power consumption. The printing speed is fast, the printing speed of general unit type narrow width flexographic printing machine can reach 150 meters / minute or higher, and the speed of satellite type wide width flexographic printing machine can reach 350 meters / minute. The scrap rate is lower than gravure and offset printing. Generally, flexo printing is completed in 2-3 days, while offset printing takes 7-8 days to complete, which greatly shortens the production cycle, reduces production costs, and improves economic benefits.
(4) High production efficiency. Flexographic printing uses roll materials, which can not only realize double-sided printing of printing materials, but also complete online light (or laminating), bronzing, die cutting, waste disposal, and rewinding work. Greatly shorten the production cycle, save manpower, material and financial resources, reduce production costs and improve economic efficiency.
(5) Small production investment and high efficiency. The structure of the flexo printing machine is relatively simple, so the operation is relatively simple and convenient. Compared with the gravure printing machine of the same color group and the corresponding offset printing machine, the price of the flexographic printing machine is much lower. In addition, the flexo printing machine integrates printing, die cutting, glazing and other processes into one, and multiple processes can be completed at one time, without the need to purchase corresponding post-processing equipment, which has a high return on investment. Therefore, equipment investment is 30% -40% lower than offset or gravure printing machines of the same scale. Because the narrow-format flexo printing machine itself has many post-press processing capabilities, users can save investment in the purchase of post-press equipment, while also saving land and reducing labor costs.
(6) Higher printing quality. Although the film layer of flexographic printing is thinner than gravure printing, it is definitely thicker than offset printing. It is very advantageous for the large-area color blocks common in printing and packaging products. Due to the use of anilox rollers to transfer ink, generally speaking, the paper situation remains unchanged, and the ink situation No change, the ink color of the same batch of products or different batches of products can be consistent, the printing accuracy can reach 150 lines / inch, and the printed products are rich in layers, bright colors, and good visual effects, especially suitable for packaging printing requirements .
The development of modern flexo printing in China originated in the late 1970s. The first combined flexo printing machine was introduced from the United States in 1979 by a packaging and decoration printing factory in Shanghai. The introduction of this flexo printing machine set off a craze for domestic flexo printing in the 1980s. After entering the 1980s, high-flexibility, high-resolution flexographic plates with stable performance and high printing resistance were gradually produced and put into practical use. In the 1990s, a short ink path inking system consisting of anilox rollers (ie anilox rollers) and doctor blades and low-viscosity, environmentally-friendly water-based inks were widely used in flexographic printing machines. Make flexographic printing more powerful. Since the 1990s, with the development of packaging decoration printing in China, flexographic printing has also been greatly developed. According to relevant information, from 1995 to date, there have been more than 150 production lines of narrow-format (less than 600mm wide) multi-functional flexographic printing machines imported from abroad, mainly used for cigarette boxes, wine boxes, cosmetic boxes, health Printing of packaging materials such as product boxes, trademarks, labels, paper cups, etc. In recent years, foreign flexo printing machines (narrow width and wide width) introduced by the domestic packaging and printing industry and domestic narrow-width flexographic printing machines have reached more than 240 production lines (including 180 imported lines) by the end of 2000 about). Domestic manufacturers are Shaanxi Printing Machinery Co., Ltd., Shanxi Taihang Printing Machinery Factory, Beiren Fuji Machinery Co., Ltd., Xi'an Heiniu Machinery Co., Ltd., Wuxi Baonan Printing Machinery Manufacturing Co., Ltd., Shanghai Ziguang Machinery Co., Ltd., Wenzhou Shenli Group, etc. factory. The importing countries are mainly the United States, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Their equipments are all multi-functional narrow-type flexo printing machines with a width of less than 600mm. The wide-format satellite flexo printing machine is mainly imported from Germany and Italy. Except for a few remote provinces, they are distributed throughout the country. The printed products are very extensive, and many printing plants have achieved good economic benefits. The application of the printing machine is mainly in the packaging industry, and the narrow-width flexographic printing machine is mainly used for trademarks, labels, folding cartons (cigarette boxes, wine boxes, medicine boxes, health care products boxes, cosmetic boxes, etc.), stationery (letter Form paper, etc.), kraft wrapping paper, gift wrapping paper, paper cups, stickers, wallpaper, etc. used in carton, paper bags and multi-layer paper bags. The wide format flexo printing machine is mainly used to produce films, aluminized films, liquid packaging (such as Tetra Pak packaging, PDL Combibloc, etc.), food, instant food, cosmetics, telephone directory, casings, pharmaceutical packaging, etc.
Flexographic printing has a history of more than 100 years from its inception to the present, but its rapid development (especially in recent years) is obvious to all, and its market share has made people in the printing industry take a stand. As one of the four major printing methods (gravure, offset, relief, and flexo), the flexographic printing process, in recent years, other traditional printing processes have remained stagnant or tend to decline, while flexographic The printing process has always maintained a rapid growth momentum and continued to expand market share, and in the next few years, this trend may continue. With the development of technology, the quality of flexographic printing has been comparable to that of gravure, embossing and offset printing products. Common offset printing jobs (such as paper boxes), gravure printing jobs (such as food packaging, cigarette packs) and Relief printing jobs (such as self-adhesive labels), etc. can generally be completed using a flexographic process. When we put the products obtained by different printing methods together for comparison, it is difficult to distinguish from the surface which is flexographic printed matter and which is gravure printed matter (or offset printed matter, relief printed matter), even experts It is also necessary to use a magnifying glass to be able to determine which process is used to print the printed matter.
At present, flexographic printing technology is in a stage of rapid development, and its own quality advantages and potential may not be fully realized. The development of science and technology is changing with each passing day, and new technologies are constantly emerging. We believe that with the gradual application of new technologies, the quality of flexographic prints may be further improved.
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