Domestic Offset Printing Ink Status and Development

Since the 1970s, with the rapid growth of economic development on a global scale and the ever-increasing levels of people's culture and living standards, the printing industry has developed at a rapid rate in the world and in China. With the advancement of the printing industry, printing technology and printing equipment have been continuously improved. Among them, offset printing has its unique advantages. For example, rapid and convenient plate making, low cost, high printing quality, wide paper use, and reduced printability. Dajiu has gradually received the attention and development from domestic and foreign printing manufacturers, which has led to rapid and extensive development. As a result, offset printing has dominated the international printing industry, and offset printing inks have also developed rapidly. In order to meet the needs of various printing equipment, substrates, and various packaging and decoration products, publishing and printing, offset printing inks are increasingly being used, the level of ink manufacturing technology is continuously increasing, and the output of inks is increasing. According to relevant information, currently offset printing inks account for about 40% of the total amount of printing inks, and this proportion will not change much within a certain period of time.

First, the market status of offset printing ink

In recent years, with the development of the world economy and the continuous improvement of people’s cultural life, the ink industry in the industrially more developed countries has also experienced rapid development, and the printing and publishing industry and printing and decoration products have gradually developed toward diversification and gentrification. In order to meet the needs of users, the pursuit of fine print and gentrification, printing plants continue to update and improve printing equipment. The advent of high-speed, multi-color, low-pollution, and high-efficiency printing equipment has prompted printers to continue to make new demands on ink manufacturers. According to statistics, in the ink production of more developed countries, offset printing ink products mainly include offset bright fast drying ink, non-heat solid offset rotary printing ink, press rotation ink, etc., followed by ultraviolet drying ink and infrared drying ink. Synthetic paper offset printing ink, iron printing ink, anhydrous printing ink and various special inks for offset printing.

In order to meet the user's requirements for quality and price in different grades, according to the main printing requirements, including: color, density, dryness, water resistance, printing speed, on-board stability and other major ink quality indicators have launched different grades. The inks are available to the user for full selection.

In addition, in order to protect the environment from pollution, foreign printing inks have also put forward new requirements in terms of low toxicity and no pollution. Environmental protection and non-pollution have been proposed by more and more users as an important requirement when purchasing ink. Has received widespread attention from users.

The status of domestic ink industry

In recent years, with the development of China's printing industry, the development pace of the domestic ink industry is also accelerating, with the introduction of a large number of imported and domestic high-speed offset presses and the use of new types of printing substrates (for example, offset printing has traditionally used coated paper in the past. , white paper, paperboard, to expand the matt paper is matte paper, gold version of paper, silver version of paper, aluminum foil and other printed substrates), printing new technology and printing after the special requirements of processing, ink companies rely on scientific and technological progress, Continuous development of marketable new products, improvement of old products, product variety is increasing, and quality is gradually approaching the international advanced level. The renewal of ink production equipment and the improvement of production technology have also gradually received the attention of manufacturers. In the past ten years, major domestic ink manufacturers in Tianjin, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Shenzhen, Taiyuan and other places have paid attention to collecting market information and continuously developing marketable new types of offset ink products, such as: Inks, cardboard inks, matt powder inks (glossy inks), press rotation inks, coldset offset transfer inks, UV curable inks, offset synthetic paper inks, iron printing inks, and the latest in domestic heat in recent years The output of solid offset transfer inks and other products has been increasing year by year, and the quality has caught up with or approached the international advanced level, and has been recognized by printing customers at home and abroad. In addition to the sales in the domestic market to replace the high-grade inks that had to be imported in the past, some of them were exported to the international market. Some high value-added special offset inks have also been successfully developed to meet the requirements of special printing. At present, most of the products in the offset ink product overview map can be produced by major ink manufacturers in China, meeting the needs of the printing industry.

In addition, the major domestic ink manufacturers pay attention to the quality standardization and internationalization of offset ink products. Some ink products have reached the US PANTONE color standard. Ink enterprises passed the ISO9000 series quality management system and ISO14001 series of environmental management system certification, and laid the foundation for domestic offset printing ink to participate in international market competition.

At present, environmentally friendly offset printing inks are also increasingly drawing attention from print users at home and abroad.

Second, the main gap between domestic offset printing ink and similar foreign products

Although the output of Chinese offset printing inks has been increasing in recent years, the quality level of products has been continuously improved, and the variety of ink colors has been increasing. However, although the gap between the production of ink products of the same type in industrialized countries is still relatively large and there are many deficiencies in quality, it is still not possible. Meet the needs of today's printing, packaging and publishing. The main gaps are as follows:

1. There is still a certain gap between domestic ink quality level and packaging level compared with similar products in the United States, Japan, and Western European countries;

2. There is still a gap in the printing process requirements, high-speed adaptability, consistency of product quality, and ink stability.

3. The development of special special inks is in a slow state and cannot meet the printing requirements for the rapid development of packaging and replacement. Some products are still in shortage or blank. For example: offset printing inks, offset printing inks. No fragrant offset printing sheet-fed ink and fragrant thermosetting offset printing ink still need further development and improvement of quality;

4. Four-color printing inks suitable for high-speed overprint printing still need further improvement in terms of high concentration, high transparency and vividness, and excellent overprintability;

5. Environmentally-friendly offset inks still need further development.

Therefore, the domestic ink manufacturers need to solve the problem is to continue to stabilize and improve the quality of existing products, improve product packaging, improve the quality of raw materials for ink production, existing products to achieve high quality, serialization, to meet market requirements, continue to develop the market Urgently needed new products.

Third, the development trend of offset printing ink

Since the 1990s, due to the rapid development and popularization of color desktop platemaking systems, the international color printing market has undergone significant changes. Printing products have grown rapidly toward colorization, and printing timeliness and quality requirements have become higher. Therefore, offset printing, as a printing method that prints high-quality prints economically, efficiently, and flexibly, will remain a major printing method for a long period of time.

Offset printing ink as one of the raw materials for offset printing, the future development of the target should be adapted to the printing of multi-color, high-speed, quick-drying, no pollution, low consumption development needs. We should absorb and learn from the advanced experience of foreign countries, face the present, identify gaps and catch up, we must maintain our own advantages, and improve our country's ink production and equipment standards, technical standards and product standardization through the introduction of advanced technologies and equipment, and improve offset printing. The quality of inks has enabled our country's printing inks to achieve high quality and serialization, and has worked hard for the rapid development of China's ink industry.