Siegwerk Showcasing Ink Solutions at Labelexpo Europe

Siegwerk will showcase its ink solutions and services addressing current and future packaging trends at Booth 6A in Hall 6 at Labelexpo Europe 2019 in Brussels, Belgium, which takes place Sept. 24-27.

“It’s Siegwerk’s goal to provide our customers with the most efficient ink solutions and support for their situations, by being ‘Focused on your needs’,” said Guido Lander, VP Business Unit Narrow Web EMEA at Siegwerk. “At this year’s booth, we will highlight our expertise in trending topics like shrink sleeves, plastic tubes and laminates, digital printing as well as upcoming requirements from brand owners regarding sustainable ink solutions and how Siegwerk’s product portfolio enables efficient recycling of printed films.”

The all-round labeling of containers using sleeves is a growing trend in packaging today as it offers more design opportunities than standard labels. But the sleeve production is a fully developed and complex process and printing inks for sleeves must meet strict requirements, regardless of whether the tube is printed with UV ink or solvent ink.

They have to be flexible to not break after shrinking and need to be scratch-proof to endure the disposal process without any damage. Besides, they must be heat-resistant and need to include pigments that do not bleed out in the steam shrink tunnel. A crucial role is taken on by the full-surface white which is applied on the inner side of the film, generally as the last ink of reverse printing. The white must possess good gliding properties and high scratch-resistance so that it is not damaged when the sleeves are pulled over the final containers.

Siegwerk will present its range of UV, LED UV and solvent-based ink systems and special whites for all printing technologies suitable for sleeves used for non-food and food packaging applications.

All inks and whites are available as both standard and low migration ink systems.

Plastic tubes and laminates (PTL) are challenging packaging structures especially demanding highly reactive ink series with good adhesion mainly on pre-treated Polyethylene and Polypropylene covering many types of printing processes. Overprint varnishes for PTL manufacturing must offer high chemical resistance to various kinds of filling goods, high scuff resistance as well as good surface slip properties for processing the tubes in filling lines. Optimal post-decoration properties are required for hot-foil stamping or screen printing which often gets applied on top of the tube coating. Siegwerk’s specialty UV varnishes can be applied on various laminates and tubes based on plastic substrates like PE, PP, ABS, PC and PS.

The company will present a new ink development especially for the PTL segment, Sicura Nutritube, a new low migration ink series for dry offset printing is designed for extruded (pre-formed) tubes as well as laminated tubes in web printing.

Siegwerk offers customized ink solutions to end-users’ final application requirements. Thereby, customization goes beyond classical color matching for Siegwerk, it also covers optimization of adhesion, mechanical and chemical resistance as well as an assessment of migration risk. The company strongly believes that digital printing offers tremendous possibilities for growth in packaging. UV inkjet allows for direct print on 3D objects which increases brand differentiation, helps packaging producers to save labeling materials, reduces waste and achieves overall leaner processes.

Siegwerk will present its inkjet ink portfolio for a wide range of applications including food, pharma as well as household, hygiene and industrial packaging.

During Labelexpo, Siegwerk will present for the first time a newly developed product system which allows for complete de-inking of printed films as they are used for labels, shrink sleeves and other applications, leading to a complete “clean/virgin” recycling of the transparent film in a later process.

With SICURA Low NRGY UV/LED UV the company offers a newly developed UV/LED UV offset ink system with impressive deinking properties even comparable to the deinkability of conventional oil-based sheetfed offset inks. Besides, customers find water- and solvent-based ink series that are compostable according to DIN EN 13432.

With its ink series Sicura Litho NutriEco Siegwerk also markets the world’s first low migration UV ink range for cosmetics and food applications that have been awarded the Gold status of the “Cradle to Cradle Material Health Certification” by the Environmental Protection Encouragement Agency (EPEA). These inks are safe for recycling processes and adhere to the circular economy approach.