Water-Based Inks Are Prone to Three Types of Performance Changes — Flexible Packaging Printers Should Keep This in Mind!
- Water-based inks are Newtonian fluids with relatively poor stability, and their performance changes mainly fall into three categories: pigment sedimentation, pH decrease, and viscosity increase.
- To prevent pigment sedimentation from causing printed color to differ from the standard, the ink in the drum must be stirred evenly before use and the ink in the trough stirred frequently during printing; a fully enclosed doctor blade can keep the ink stirring and flowing under the ink pump.
- Volatilization of stabilizers during storage and use lowers the pH of water-based ink toward weak alkalinity, increasing surface tension and reducing adhesion to the plate surface, which affects transfer performance and drying speed; the more alkaline the ink, the faster it dries, and when printing screen plates, overly fast drying can cause dot loss or screen blockage.
- During use, water volatilization increases the viscosity of water-based ink and weakens its flow; printing equipment with single doctor blade ink supply requires the ink's viscosity and fluidity to stay within a suitable range, and exceeding these requirements affects transfer performance and causes “color difference” on large solid printed areas.
Water-based inks are Newtonian fluids, so their stability is relatively poor, which is mainly manifested in the following three aspects.
①Pigment sedimentation. Before use, the ink in the ink drum must be stirred evenly, and during printing the ink in the ink trough must also be stirred frequently to prevent pigment sedimentation from causing a certain difference between the printed color and the standard. An effective way is to use a fully enclosed doctor blade, so that the ink remains in a stirring and flowing state under the operation of the ink pump.
②During storage and use, the volatilization of stabilizers in the ink composition causes the pH value to decrease (tending toward weak alkalinity). During use, the stabilizers in water-based ink volatilize easily, causing the ink to tend toward weak alkalinity, which increases its surface tension and instead reduces its adhesion to the plate surface, affecting transfer performance and drying speed (the more the ink tends toward alkalinity, the faster the drying speed). This can cause incomplete printed images and text during printing; especially when printing screen plates, because the ink dries too quickly, printed dots are lost or the screen plate becomes blocked.
③During use, the volatilization of water causes the viscosity of the ink to increase and its flow properties to weaken. Some printing equipment uses a single doctor blade system for ink supply, requiring the ink to have a certain viscosity and fluidity within a relatively suitable range. When the viscosity and fluidity of the ink during use exceed the requirements for printing, the transfer performance of the ink is affected, and “color difference” appears on the surface of large solid areas of printed products.
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