Brief analysis of corrugated board printing technology

    With the progress of society, the prosperity of economy, the increasingly fierce market competition and the continuous improvement of people's living standards, people's requirements for commodity packaging are also increasing. The packaging of goods, whether the inner packaging directly facing consumers or the middle packaging and outer packaging that may be discarded in the process of product transportation, storage and transportation, plays a vital role in product publicity and brand building. The role of corrugated boxes, which were initially used as product transportation packaging to protect products, has also been enriched, which has directly led to the improvement of people's requirements for the printing quality of corrugated boxes and the gradual diversification of the printing methods of corrugated boards.    Direct printing process is one of the main printing processes of corrugated board at present. The printing methods of direct printing mainly include three kinds: flexographic priting, offset printing and digital ink-jet printing, in which digital ink-jet printing is dominant. The process flow of packaging and printing process is: corrugated board production, paperboard direct printing, film cutting and slotting, and adhesive nail box.

 Flexography

 Flexographic printing is a printing technology that uses flexographic printing plate and uses water-based ink or solvent based volatile ink to transfer ink through anilox ink transfer roller. Flexographic printing has the characteristics of fast ink drying, high printing speed and low cost. It is especially suitable for the printing of corrugated board with low requirements for printing accuracy.

   Offset printing

    Using water-based quick drying ink to replace the past, a new EPN process rising in the field of product packaging is also an innovation of offset printing process. However, due to the large printing pressure of offset printing and the use of fountain solution in printing, compression and water absorption will reduce the strength of corrugated board. Therefore, at present, direct offset printing can only be printed on micro corrugated board with high strength and ultra-thin, and special blanket with strong compressibility and good ink absorption and transfer performance should be used to prevent the decline of corrugated board strength and the phenomenon of "washboard".

    Digital inkjet printing

    In addition to the above two main printing methods, the direct printing method of corrugated board also includes digital inkjet printing. Digital printing is the direct printing of computer documents to clothing, leather, paper and other media, which simplifies the cumbersome traditional printing process and realizes the advantages of one printing, no plate making, immediate availability, on-demand printing and so on. It can be seen that the development potential of digital printing press in the future is quite huge. The digital printing machine has the advantages of less investment, extremely low printing cost, optional printing size, high printing quality, small occupied space, few operators, extremely low operating cost, and large thickness selectivity of printing material type, which has great investment advantages. Coupled with professional digital printing ink, it can achieve color saturation, gorgeous, wide color gamut and good transition, which is far more than the traditional printing effect.

    Prospect of digital inkjet printing

    Compared with traditional printing, digital printing has incomparable advantages. Traditional printing is a kind of industrial engineering in which the original image or text is made into a printing plate by direct or indirect methods, the plate is coated with pigment printing ink, the pigment printing ink is transferred to paper or other substrates under pressure, and then copied in large quantities. Digital printing aims at the personalized on-demand production market, and its workflow is: electronic pre printing system → printing → printed matter.

    The rise of digital printing is closely related to market demand. With the increasing market competition, all walks of life hope to achieve zero inventory operation. The personalized printing production of short version operation and variable data information is rising rapidly. The traditional printing methods of large-scale and batch production in the past can not meet the development of the industry. Although the reproduction quality of traditional printing methods is high, digital printing adapts to the advantages of variable information printing, personalized printing, customized printing, rapid response to the market, fast delivery and rapid completion of short version operation, which makes digital printing a powerful supplement to traditional printing methods. At the same time, with the continuous improvement of digital printing technology, the product quality has also been significantly improved. Therefore, digital printing technology has become one of the main printing methods that can not be ignored.