20 years of pioneering work in digital printing
4. May 2022

For over 25 years, we have been producing water-based printing inks capable of meeting the highest demands. With our pioneering spirit, we constantly pursue new ideas and break new ground. This allows us to translate customer needs into products that meet all expectations.

Our products can be found in decorative surfaces for laminate flooring, furniture as well as kitchen fronts, on wallpapers, food packaging, adhesive tapes, corrugated boards, cardboard and on other materials.

We are the world market leader for decor printing inks.

A pioneering achievement in digital printing
Over 20 years ago, we pioneered the development of the first water-based decor inks based on organic pigments for piezo DOD (drop on demand) technology. This led to the birth a short time later of the AR DECJET inkjet decor ink series for multipass printers.

The same high-performance pigments used for decor gravure printing are also used for decor digital printing. This enables our customers to perform digital metamerism-free separations with our decor gravure inks we supply worldwide.

A veritable revolution! Especially since the extremely costly and time-consuming separation process in gravure printing and the transportation of lab proof cylinders have been drastically reduced. In the meantime, over 100 multipass printers worldwide have already been commissioned with our ink systems.

The journey continues

Digital printing is developing rapidly. Depending on the requirements in terms of design, flexibility, batch size, process speed, investment and operating costs and the resulting printing costs/m2, the decor customer decides on the appropriate technology:

Slowspeed Multipass Midspeed Multipass Highspeed Multipass Single-Pass
Speed 3-15 m2/h 20-150 m2/h 100 – 600 m2/h 0 to > 21’000 m2/h
0 – 150 m/min
Effective width 0.6 – 3.5 m 1.3 – 3.5 m 1.8 – 3.5 m 1.8 – 3.5 m
Investment costs 4 – 35 TEUR 10 – 300 TEUR 400 – 800 TEUR EUR 3 to >12 million

 

Partnership
ARCOLOR’s success in the field of water-based inkjet decor inks is based on close, long-standing and trustful cooperation with various machine builders, print head manufacturers and software suppliers.

Ink development is an extremely complex task. The requirements of decor printing and its subsequent processing and the process engineering requirements of digital printing presses must both be met.

With this in mind, we have developed inkjet inks for printheads such as Epson®, Fuji®, Kyocera®, Ricoh®, Xaar®, Xerox®. Depending on the particular printhead, the viscosity ranges between 3 and 200 cP.

The requirements in digital decor printing
Our gravure and inkjet printing inks for decor printing meet the same high-quality criteria. They are characterized by high stability and consistency, ensuring reliability during further processing – during the coating or impregnation process and during pressing using short-cycle, HPL and CPL presses.
Our 4-color basic system covers the entire color gamut according to ISO 12647 and reproduces 80% of the Pantone color gamut. But that’s not all: with our 5-color system, we are even able to reproduce 90% of the Pantone color gamut. Other inkjet printing colors are available on request. The color gamut can be expanded in a targeted manner.

Our ink systems guarantee excellent print stability, fast response and a consistent dot level. Moreover, they have a good open time.

We supply specific primers for various decor applications. Certain primers can additionally raise the color strength.

Our experience in digital printing is not limited to decor paper or pre-impregnated paper. We have recently developed ink systems that are suitable for FCM applications and can be used on a wide range of substrates. Printing on thermoplastic films is also possible with appropriate primer systems. This opens up new opportunities. The experience we have gleaned in this respect is also allowing us to gain a foothold in new markets.

Investments in the future
With a view to the further development of digital printing inks, investments were recently made in new laboratories with state-of-the-art equipment and in the recruitment of highly specialized staff.

In order to further meet application-related customer requirements and continue to evolve, we have set up a comprehensive, air-conditioned inkjet technical center where tests are carried out with the most commonly used printheads.

Sustainability
Did you know that our production has been CO2 -neutral since 2016? On request and for a fee, we can offset your CO2 shipping emissions.

In short, we are ready for the future. Digital? Analog? Or both? We know the answers. We’ll be happy to advise you. Take advantage of our expertise. Choose a trustworthy partner. Put your trust in ARCOLOR.

Contact
info@arcolor.ch
T +41 71 353 70 30