Environmentally friendly ink, also known as ink, is a printing material prepared by water-based polymer resin, emulsion, organic pigment, water and related additives through physical and chemical processes. Due to the use of environmentally friendly raw materials, low volatile organic compounds (VOC) emissions, high solid content and easy biodegradation of the formula, thus avoiding the threat of toxic substances in solvent-based inks to human health and pollution of packaged goods. In addition, the environmentally friendly ink also improves the printing operation environment, which is an environmentally friendly product. Thanks to this, its application in the printing industry is more and more extensive.
 
01 Market insights for eco-friendly coatings
Due to the excellent performance of environmental protection coatings, they are widely used in packaging and printing products with strict hygiene requirements such as tobacco, wine, medicine, children's toys, beverages, and food. According to relevant data, China's water-based ink production in 2008 was only 80,000 tons, the output exceeded 200,000 tons in 2013, and by 2022, China's water-based ink production has reached 397,000 tons. In 2022, the output value of China's environmental protection ink reached 5.908 billion yuan, an increase of 4.3%; In the first half of 2023, the output value of China's environmental protection ink was 2.868 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth rate of -2.9%.
 
With the continuous improvement of environmental awareness and consumers' pursuit of healthy quality of life, the market for environmentally friendly coatings has gradually risen. Environmentally friendly coatings with its non-toxic, tasteless, pollution-free characteristics, has become a popular product in the field of home decoration and engineering.
 
On the one hand, environmentally friendly coatings are in line with national policy guidance. The Chinese government attaches great importance to environmental protection and has issued a series of environmental regulations and policies to encourage enterprises to develop and produce environmentally friendly products. Environmentally friendly coatings, as green building materials, are benefiting from this policy dividend.
 
On the other hand, the market demand for environmentally friendly coatings is growing. Consumers are paying more and more attention to the environmental performance of products when purchasing coatings. Environmentally friendly coatings with non-toxic and low volatile organic compounds (VOC) emissions are welcomed by the market, especially in home improvement, furniture, automotive, electronics and other fields.
 
In addition, environmentally friendly coatings have excellent properties. Compared with traditional coatings, environmentally friendly coatings have obvious advantages in wear resistance, anti-aging, adhesion, etc., and can also meet consumers' personalized needs for color, texture, and artistic effect.
 
02 Classification of environmentally friendly ink
 
 
 
At present, there are mainly the following green inks on the market: energy curing ink, alcohol soluble ink, environmentally friendly offset printing ink.
 
1. energy curing ink
Energy curing inks are mainly divided into UV curing inks and EB curing inks.
 
① UV ink
UV curing ink is the use of a certain wavelength of ultraviolet radiation, through the instant photochemical reaction to complete the ink drying. UV ink has the following advantages:
·UV ink has the excellent characteristics of safe and reliable, no solvent emission, non-flammable and friendly to the link, which is suitable for packaging printed matter with high hygiene requirements
·UV printing ink has good adaptability and high quality. The ink color is bright and bright, firmly attached, suitable for fine product printing.
·UV ink can be dried instantaneously, high production efficiency, and strong adhesion on different carriers.
·Excellent physical and chemical properties, with water resistance, alcohol resistance, acid and alkali resistance, wear resistance, aging resistance and other characteristics.
·UV ink consumption saving. The substance can be almost completely converted into ink film, and its amount is only half that of ink or solvent ink, so it has a cost advantage.
 
It should be noted that ultraviolet light has certain harm to the human body; In addition, the ink is difficult to degrade after curing, which may lead to problems such as "secondary pollution".
 
② EB type ink
EB inks use accelerated high-energy electron beams to polymerize monomers into high molecular polymers, which have the following advantages:
·Excellent environmental performance: EB ink does not contain volatile substances VOC, small odor, harmless to human health and the environment.
·Good resistance: The chemical substances in the ink form a polymer three-dimensional network polymer through cross-linking reaction, giving the ink film good chemical resistance and friction resistance.
·Fast curing speed: the curing time of EB ink is only 0.1 seconds, compared with the traditional printing method of a few minutes or even days, which greatly improves the production efficiency and is conducive to large-scale production.
·Rich color, beautiful appearance: EB ink printed products have a high gloss and three-dimensional sense, beautiful appearance.
·Reduce cleaning time: EB ink stored in the ink hopper overnight will not appear crust, hardening phenomenon, reduce waste, save the cleaning time of the printing press.
 
Of course, as a new curing technology, electron beam (EB) curing technology also has some shortcomings in the development process; Although the price of EB curing equipment has dropped significantly in recent years, its one-time investment is still relatively high; The price of EB ink is still superior to that of ordinary ink; However, EB curing is only applicable to the curing of flat coatings, so the geometry of the cured product is limited to a certain extent. In addition, the excellent resistance of EB ink has become a factor that is difficult to deink and hinder recycling in the process of waste print recycling, so relevant research needs to be carried out in the field of print recycling to overcome this problem.
 
2. alcohol soluble ink
The solvent component of the alcohol-soluble ink is alcohol, and this solvent is derived from the brewing of renewable resources - food. Therefore, the new alcohol-soluble ink has a strong market competitiveness, and its market prospects are broad. Its main advantages are as follows:
·Suitable for a variety of printing substrates, showing stable adhesion and adaptability;
·Does not contain benzene and ketone solvents, the residual solvent in printed matter is low;
·Excellent printing performance, suitable for all kinds of low-speed to high-speed gravure composite plastic printing;
·Low residual solvent, safe, non-toxic, in line with environmental protection and health standards;
·With high gloss, frost resistance, high printing chromaticity and excellent adhesion and colorful printing products.
 
However, there are still some defects in the quality of alcohol-soluble inks produced in China, such as dark color, poor transparency, low gloss and serious gel tendency.
 
3.environmentally friendly offset printing ink
Environmentally friendly offset printing ink mainly has the following types:
① Plant oil-based offset printing ink
Because VOC emissions will seriously pollute the environment, plant-based offset printing ink is more and more favored by people. Soybean ink is the main type of plant-based offset printing ink, which has gradually replaced ordinary offset printing ink and is widely used in the commercial field. The main excellent features are as follows:
·Excellent environmental performance. Soybean ink using vegetable oil instead of oil, effectively reduce the use of fossil raw materials, reduce the shortage of earth resources; Its demand for volatile organic matter is low, which can effectively reduce air pollution. At the same time, the pigment degradation rate is 4 times that of standard gasoline ink.
·Low cost. Soybean ink is more pure than petroleum ink, requires less pigment, can reduce the cost of ink; At the same time, the ductility of soybean ink is higher, which can reduce the amount of ink used and further reduce printing costs. Although the average price of soybean inks is higher than that of gasoline inks, soybean inks are more economical in terms of pigment use, volatile organic compounds use and printing machine cleaning costs.
· Resistance to friction and heat. Soybean ink is not easy to rub off, so that newspaper readers are not troubled by black hands. Its high boiling point will not evaporate and stick to the paper when the laser printer or copier is heated, and will not pollute the machine parts.
·Good inking. The drying speed of soybean ink is slow, but the transfer is good, the inking property of the field part is good, and the ink color of the brightening part is uniform. Ordinary offset printing ink near the paper is easy to break off, soybean ink is not easy to break off, improve the amount of ink transfer.
·Good laser resistance. When heated by laser printing machine or copier, soybean ink will not evaporate and stick to the paper, and will not pollute the printing machine parts.
· Nice color. Soybean ink raw materials are edible oils such as salad oil, after refining, high fluidity, coloring and transparency, not easy to fade, can print high-quality printed matter. The UV mixed soybean ink for waterless printing has excellent recycling performance, no need to spray powder, and can print high-quality prints and improve the operating environment.
 
However, due to the lack of volatile organic compounds, soybean inks are not suitable for personal printers, and soybean inks dry more slowly than traditional petroleum inks. In addition, the raw material supply of soybean ink depends on a single crop, and if it is attacked by diseases and pests, the supply of raw materials may be strained.
 
 
② aromatic-free offset printing ink
Aromatic-free offset printing ink is a special type of ink, which eliminates aromatic hydrocarbon components in the production process to reduce environmental pollution, and this technology has been widely used in Japan.
 
Traditional offset printing inks use petroleum-based mineral oils containing aromatics, which can lead to undesirable odors and skin irritation. In contrast, inks produced without aromatics (AF) mineral oils show significant improvements in these aspects. The so-called aromatic-free mineral oil means that the aromatics in the mineral oil is controlled below 1%. From an environmental point of view, the use of aromatics free (AF) mineral oil inks compared to traditional inks, not only effectively reduce odor and skin irritation, but also improve the printing environment, so its safety is higher.
 
However, due to the characteristics of aromatic-free offset printing inks such as high aniline point, their solubility to resins is poor. The direct use of AF mineral oil in ordinary ink formulation will have a great negative impact on ink performance. For example, if AF mineral oil and ordinary ink resin is used to produce ink, due to the high aniline point of AF mineral oil, it will cause the solubility of the resin system to become worse, and then enhance the release of mineral oil in the ink, resulting in faster fixation speed, poor fluidity and transfer, and increased viscosity, which may cause printing failures such as paper flitting, and reduce the gloss of the printed product.
 
 
③ Waterless offset printing ink
Waterless offset printing using silicone resin coated plate, the graphic part of the coating has the ink repellent, can absorb ink, and realize the graphic transfer. The advantages of waterless offset printing ink are shown in the following aspects:
·Reduce printing costs. No need for water, shorten the boot adjustment time, improve the printing speed, reduce the loss of test printing paper. The ink is easy to dry, reducing the drying temperature and saving energy. Reduce downtime caused by changes in ink balance, increasing productivity and economic efficiency.
·Improve printing quality. Waterless offset printing has a low dot expansion rate, excellent dot reproduction, especially good at reproducing dark details. No need for water, reduce paper deformation, improve the overprinting accuracy. The ink color is uniform, thick and bright, and the printing resistance of the plate is significantly improved. Suitable for a wide range of substrates, including paper, plastic and metal.
· Environmental advantage. Waterless offset printing ink does not contain organic solvents, which helps to protect the environment and reduce pollution.
 
However, the waterless offset printing ink technology is not mature enough, the anti-fouling and ink transfer is difficult to take into account, and the technical difficulties in achieving balance need to be improved, at the same time, its price is relatively expensive.
 
03 articulation
As a green industry, environmental protection ink industry has great development potential, and will also become the most promising branch in the field of fine chemical industry. At present, the water-based flexo printing market has gradually matured, the gravure printing market is gradually replacing solvent ink with environmentally friendly ink, and the future trend of food flexible packaging will also be the use of environmentally friendly ink printing, especially in the relevant fields of direct contact with food.
 
With the increasing demand for environmentally friendly products, the environmentally friendly ink industry will usher in a broader market space. At the same time, the government's support and encouragement for the environmental protection industry will also further promote the development of the environmental protection ink industry. It is expected that environmental protection ink will be applied in more fields in the future, and inject new vitality into the development of environmental protection industry.

Disclaimer: This article is reproduced on our website to provide readers with more news information. The content does not constitute investment, consumption advice, only for readers' reference