Present situation and development of flexographic printing technology (2007/8/28)
Overview of flexographic printing development
The development of flexographic printing can be summarized into three main stages.
1. Early flexographic printing technology
Flexographic printing originated from aniline printing technology. According to the data, the world's first aniline printing machine was successfully developed in Britain in 1905, and obtained the British patent in 1908+02+07. The aniline printing technology in this period has the following main characteristics.
(1) Use aniline ink.
(2) The printing plate used is a hand-carved rubber relief, so it is also called rubber relief printing.
(3) The quality of printed products is low, and only color blocks, lines and simple pictures and texts can be printed.
For the above reasons, aniline printing has long been mainly used for printing paper bags and wrapping paper with general quality requirements.
2. Medium-term flexographic printing technology
In 1930s, cellophane was invented. This kind of transparent and non-absorbent printing material is light and thin, which is not suitable for gravure offset printing, and the plate-making cost of gravure printing is high, so aniline printing has become a more suitable printing method. 1940, the original satellite aniline printing machine (CI type) was developed. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, polyethylene packaging materials appeared, and at the same time, molded rubber relief and chrome-plated metal anilox rollers came out one after another. Printing ink also uses synthetic resin pigment ink instead of aniline ink, which makes flexographic printing as an independent printing method widely popularized and applied.
However, due to the toxicity of aniline ink, it can not be used for packaging and printing of food and medicine, so the composition of the ink is no longer dominated by aniline. Therefore, aniline printing named after aniline ink can no longer represent its practical significance. Therefore, at the "American Packaging Society 14 Seminar" held in June 1952, aniline printing was renamed flexographic printing. Since then, flexographic printing technology has entered a relatively rapid development period.
Flexographic printing has the following main characteristics at this stage.
(1) Strictly restricting the use of aniline ink not only protects the interests of consumers, but also benefits the environment.
(2) The use of molded rubber plate and chrome-plated metal anilox roller improves the quality of printed matter, which can not only print color blocks, lines and characters, but also print halftone images with 60 lines/inch.
(3) The substrate range is expanded, and it can be widely used for printing cellophane and various plastic films besides printing paper bags and wrapping paper.
3. Modern flexographic printing technology
After entering the 1970s, flexographic printing technology made a major breakthrough and entered a period of rapid development, mainly in the following aspects.
(1) High-performance and high-resolution photosensitive resin plates have been put into use, and the prepress system has been digitized and standardized, which can reproduce halftone images of 133 lines/inch, 150 lines/inch or even 200 lines/inch.
(2) The popularization and application of high-precision and high-thread-count ceramic net roller and the rational configuration of closed ink conveying system have realized high-speed and high-quality flexographic printing.
(3) using alcohol-based ink, polyamide ink, acrylic ink, water-based ink,
The development and application of UV/EB ink not only improves the quality of printed matter, but also reduces pollution and protects the environment.
(4) Flexographic printing technology and CTP direct plate-making technology are developing simultaneously, and it is becoming another important printing method after offset printing and gravure printing. It not only shows strong development momentum, but also has great development space, especially in packaging and printing.
Characteristics of modern flexographic printing market
1. Flexographic printing market share
Europe and the United States are the regions with the fastest development of modern flexographic printing technology. According to the survey of European and American printing market research institutions on the share of various printing methods in the printing industry, the following two conclusions can be drawn from 1970 and the change data of market share of various printing methods.
After nearly 35 years' development, the market share of (1) flexographic printing has increased from 10% in 1970s to about 33% at present, making it the second largest printing method after offset printing.
(2) More than 30 years ago, offset printing and gravure printing accounted for 80% and dominated the printing industry; By 2000, the market share of offset lithography and gravure printing had dropped to 65%, and this year it has dropped to 50%. However, due to the remarkable improvement of flexographic printing in printing quality, printing cost and environmental protection, its market has been expanding and has been in a rapid rising stage. Especially in recent years, the development is particularly prominent, which has a great impact on offset printing and gravure printing.
2. The share of flexographic printing in packaging printing
Because flexographic printing itself has irreplaceable characteristics of other printing, its application in packaging printing is expanding day by day.
It can be seen that as early as around 1985, flexographic printing in the United States has dominated packaging printing; At present, more than 30% of the packaging in the EU uses flexographic printing. It can be asserted that the share of flexographic printing in packaging printing will continue to expand.
In packaging printing, different packaging products have different requirements for flexographic printing. Flexographic printing is widely used in soft packaging material printing, label printing, corrugated board printing and carton printing, which also shows the development trend of packaging printing
In the past 30 years, the world flexographic printing market has been in a steady growth stage. In some countries with developed economy and advocating environmental protection, the market share of flexographic printing is close to offset printing, far exceeding gravure printing. The United States first introduced flexographic printing into newspaper printing, and now 38 newspapers have adopted it, accounting for about 30% of newspaper printing; In western European countries, 65,438+04 newspapers have adopted flexographic printing, of which 25% newspapers in Italy have adopted flexographic printing.
Present situation and development of flexographic printing in China
For a long time, China's flexographic printing technology has been in a relatively backward state, mainly in the following three aspects.
1. Flexographic printing started late.
Global flexographic printing technology rose in the early 1970s. After decades of efforts, it has formed a relatively complete system from technology to equipment, equipment, technology to management. In contrast, the application of flexographic printing in China started very late. During the Sixth Five-Year Plan, the Seventh Five-Year Plan and the Eighth Five-Year Plan (1980 ~ 1995), although the printing technology in China had made great progress, the development focus at that time was offset printing, and the international development of flexographic printing technology was basically ignored, which virtually widened the original contrast.
2. The flexographic printing market is very small.
The strength of flexographic printing in China is relatively weak, and only in the middle and late last century did it attract the attention of the industry as a main printing method, mainly in packaging and printing. According to relevant data, up to now, the proportion of flexographic printing in the whole printing industry in China is only about 1%, even in packaging printing, the share is only nearly 7%, and newspaper printing has not been paid attention to. It can be said that the overall level of flexographic printing technology in China is far below the world average, and it is basically in the primary stage.
3. Equipment can't meet the requirements.
(1) Domestic equipment and equipment
/kloc-over the past 0/0 years, more than 50 flexographic printing machines (narrow flexographic printing production lines) have been designed and manufactured in China, which belong to the middle and low technical level and can only meet the general quality requirements; There are more than 30 professional flexographic plate-making factories, mainly producing characters, lines and low-line halftones; The supply channels of water-based ink, ceramic net roller, adhesive tape, gasket, printing plate sleeve and die-cutting tools have been initially established, which cannot meet the market demand, and some high-quality equipment still depends on imports.
(2) Imported equipment and equipment
① 1999 ~ 2004, more than 350 narrow flexographic printing production lines and more than 40 wide CI flexographic printing machines were introduced nationwide. These equipments mainly come from China, Taiwan Province Province, Britain, Japan, Canada, the United States, Germany and other countries.
② Although photosensitive resin plates can be produced in China, high-precision printing plates still need to be imported.
(3) Some supporting equipment such as high-quality water-based ink, UV ink, double-sided adhesive tape and rotary die cutting tools still need to be imported.
From the above analysis, it is not difficult to see that domestic flexographic printing equipment and equipment can not meet the market demand, which makes our country's high-precision flexographic printing still rely on imports, which will inevitably lead to high printing costs, which is also the most important obstacle to open up our country's flexographic printing market. Therefore, for China, a big country in packaging printing, book printing and newspaper printing, it is the only way to change the backward situation of flexographic printing technology in China by increasing the investment in flexographic printing technology, developing medium and high-grade flexographic printing equipment and key equipment, and improving the localization level of flexographic printing equipment and equipment as soon as possible. (Author: Huang Lingge Liu Xueying)