It’s called a color-changing cup.
The color of the thermochromic cup changes when the temperature is above 40℃, and the color of the cold color cup changes when the temperature is below 20℃. Discoloration when exposed to water has not yet become popular. Their principle is: temperature-sensitive materials are printed on the cup body. The materials used are heat-sensitive materials that can withstand high temperatures of 320°C. They are non-toxic, lead-free, and chromium-free and can meet European standards. According to the design plan of the design draft, film production, plate making, printing, drying, baking, and then packaging are carried out.
Cup processing into color-changing cups basically uses one of three methods: direct printing, water transfer printing, and heat transfer printing.
1. Direct printing:
It refers to printing directly on the cup using a roller printing machine. This technology is technically difficult. Generally, factories can only print one to three colors. The registration requirements are high, and there is nothing you can do if there are many colors. However, a powerful factory can overprint up to 20 colors without shifting. This technology is only suitable for small batch production, and the efficiency is very low. It can only print color blocks, but it is very difficult to print photo effects.
2. Water transfer printing:
Use a printing machine to print on water transfer paper first, so that rich colors can be printed, and it can also be mass-produced, but for The environmental requirements are relatively high, and the printing environment requires constant temperature and humidity to ensure printing accuracy. The printed water transfer paper is placed in water, the pattern is separated from the paper, and the pattern is transferred to the cup to bake the finished product. The following Christmas color-changing cup belongs to this kind of technology.
3. Thermal transfer printing:
The printing process is basically the same as that of water transfer printing. The printed thermal transfer paper is heated and pressurized by the machine and transferred to the cup body. When producing color-changing cups through transfer printing, all manual operations are relied on when transferring patterns, while thermal transfer relies on machine automation. Therefore, a modern color-changing cup factory has a color-changing pigment production line, a fully automatic printing production line, and a fully automatic thermal transfer printing The decal production line is the strongest expression of competitive strength.
Extended information:
The origin of the color-changing cup:
Everyone has the experience of being burned when drinking water. A certain fast food company even complained about it because of Customers were burned and paid hefty compensation. Although many fast-food restaurants have reminders on their hot drink cups, the salesperson still has to go out of his way to remind every customer.
Of course, if the wall of the cup is not too thick, you can know whether the drink inside is drinkable by touching it with your hand. However, if the wall of the cup is thin and the cup is not insulated, it will be very inconvenient to carry. , this contradiction is particularly obvious in restaurants that provide takeaway coffee services.
Finally, an inventor thought of inventing a "smart" lid, which is brown in color. When the beverage in the cup is very hot and steaming, the lid will change. It turns bright red, and when the temperature drops, it turns back to brown. In this way, customers can tell at a glance whether the temperature of the drink in the cup is suitable for drinking.
Nicholas grew up in a coffee shop run by his father, and has been running several coffee shops himself for the past 15 years. In his work, he found that customers would be burned by coffee for two reasons. One was that they underestimated the temperature of the coffee, and the other was that the lid of the coffee cup was not closed properly, and the latter may cause more serious burns. Perhaps Nicholas was not the first person to start thinking about this issue, but he realized that this would be a very broad market.
Later, a material that changes color with temperature caught Nicholas's attention. He found that a lid with this color-changing function could solve these two problems well. When the lid is closed, the cup should be completely sealed. Once the position is wrong, steam will escape from the gap, and the color of the lid at this position will also change accordingly.
However, it is not easy to apply this material to cup lids. Nicholas spent 4 years developing this magical lid. Manufacturing company Matsui has never produced a product this thin before.
The color-changing lid is already in production, has obtained licenses for Australia and the Asia-Pacific region, and is applying for sales licenses in Europe and the United States.
Nicholas is applying for related patents in multiple regions around the world.
At the same time, Nicholas began to develop the second generation product. During the development process, it was discovered that various colors could be used for temperature indication. Considering that the fast food market is very sensitive to cost changes, Nicholas chose two indicator colors, coffee and bright red, for the first generation product, which allowed the cost difference between the old and new coffee cup lids to be controlled within one cent.
However, some customers may have more special requirements. As long as they spend a little more money, it is possible to produce products with more functions, thus bringing different experiences to users. For example, let the lids of different companies change to different colors, or display personalized information when the lid is closed.
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