In the field of modern packaging and printing, food-grade offset printing inks are gradually becoming the focus. With the increasing attention of consumers to food safety, the safety of food packaging has also received unprecedented attention. As a key material in direct contact with food packaging, the quality and safety of food-grade offset printing ink are directly related to the health of consumers.
1. The birth background of food-grade offset printing ink
Traditional offset printing inks perform well in printing performance, however, their composition often contains heavy metals, organic solvents, and other substances that may be harmful to human health. When these inks are used for food packaging printing, harmful substances can migrate into the food, posing a potential threat to food safety. For example, the heavy metals such as lead and mercury in some inks will accumulate in the human body after long-term ingestion, damaging the nervous system and blood system. With increasingly stringent regulations and increasing consumer health awareness, there is an urgent need to develop a food-grade offset ink that is both safe and reliable with good printing performance.
2. The characteristics of food-grade offset printing ink
High level of safety
This is the core property of food-grade offset inks. It strictly restricts the use of harmful substances such as heavy metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and ensures the safety of food packaging from the source. At the same time, an advanced purification process is adopted in the production process to ensure that no new contaminants are introduced into the ink's production, storage and use. For example, through precise raw material screening and quality control, the content of heavy metals such as lead, cadmium, and mercury in inks is almost undetectable.
Good printability
Food-grade offset printing inks must be able to adapt to various offset printing equipment and process requirements. It needs to have the right viscosity, fluidity and drying speed to ensure that the printed pattern is clear, the colors are vibrant, and the layers are rich. On high-speed offset presses, the ink should be able to be quickly transferred to the printing plate and substrate and dry in a short time without affecting the printing efficiency and quality. Like some new types of food-grade offset printing inks, through special formula design, under the premise of ensuring safety, its printability is even better than that of traditional inks.
Stability
Whether under different environmental conditions such as high temperature, high humidity or low temperature, food-grade offset printing inks must maintain stable performance. In the process of storage and transportation of food packaging, packaging materials may experience a variety of complex environments, and the ink can not fade, discolor, peel off, etc., to ensure that the information on the packaging is always clear and legible, while maintaining the beauty of the packaging.
3. The key components of food-grade offset printing inks
Resin
As the main film-forming substance of ink, food-grade offset printing inks usually use non-toxic or low-toxicity resins, such as some modified vegetable oil-based resins. These resins not only have good film-forming properties that allow inks to adhere firmly to packaging materials, but also have good chemical and water resistance, while meeting food safety standards. They will not contaminate food while ensuring the printing performance of the ink.
Pigments
The pigments selected must be food-grade pigments that have undergone strict screening. These pigments have high purity, good dispersion and lightfastness. Inorganic pigments such as titanium dioxide are often used in white inks, with stable chemical properties and high safety; Organic pigments are used in a special synthesis process to remove harmful impurities, ensure that harmful substances are not transferred to food during the printing process, and can present a rich variety of colors.
Solvent
In order to reduce the viscosity of the ink and facilitate the printing operation, the solvents used in food-grade offset printing inks are mostly environmentally friendly solvents, such as ethanol, isopropanol, etc. These solvents are volatile and dry quickly after printing, reducing residues. At the same time, they are less toxic, do not pose a significant risk to human health even with small residues, and comply with the relevant food contact material regulations.
Additives
The right amount of additives can help improve the performance of the ink. For example, desiccant can accelerate the drying speed of ink and improve printing efficiency; The dispersant can make the pigment evenly disperse in the ink system, prevent the pigment from agglomerating, and ensure the stability and printing quality of the ink. The additives used in food-grade offset inks are products that have been rigorously evaluated to ensure that they do not negatively impact food safety.
4. The field of application
Food packaging
This is the most important application field of food-grade offset printing ink, covering the packaging of all kinds of food, such as beverage bottle labels, biscuit boxes, instant noodle bags, dairy product packaging boxes, etc. On these packaging, the inks must not only achieve beautiful printing results and attract the attention of consumers, but also ensure food safety. For example, the ink on the label of the beverage bottle cannot have any substances migrate into the beverage during long-term contact with the beverage to ensure the safety of consumers.
Pharmaceutical packaging
The safety of pharmaceutical products is also crucial. When food-grade offset printing ink is used in pharmaceutical packaging printing, it is necessary to meet the strict requirements of pharmaceutical packaging to prevent the components in the ink from chemical reaction with the drug, which will affect the quality and efficacy of the drug. The printed content such as text and pattern on the drug packaging box must be clear and long-lasting to ensure that the drug information is accurately conveyed and that the ink will not cause pollution to the drug.
Children's product packaging
Children's bodies are more sensitive and less resistant to harmful substances. Therefore, it is particularly important to use food-grade offset printing inks for packaging and printing of children's food, toys and other products. On children's food packaging bags, the safety of the ink is directly related to the healthy growth of children, and it cannot contain any substances that may cause harm to children's bodies.
5. Challenges
Cost issue
Due to the use of safer raw materials and stricter production processes, the production cost of food-grade offset printing inks is usually higher than that of traditional inks. This makes some packaging and printing companies have concerns when choosing inks, especially in the case of fierce market competition and high cost pressure, some companies may give priority to cost factors and pay insufficient attention to the safety of inks.
Room for improvement
While food-grade offset inks are constantly evolving, there are still areas where there is room for improvement. For example, on some special packaging materials, the adhesion and wear resistance of the ink can not fully meet the requirements; When printing some complex patterns and fine lines, there is still a certain gap in printing quality compared with traditional inks. How to further improve the printing performance of ink under the premise of ensuring safety is a problem that the industry needs to solve.
Complexity of regulations and standards
Different countries and regions have different regulations and standards for food-grade offset printing inks, which brings trouble to ink manufacturers and packaging printing enterprises. Enterprises need to invest a lot of manpower and material resources to understand and meet the regulatory requirements of various regions, which increases the operating costs and management difficulties of enterprises. At the same time, regulations and standards are constantly updated and improved, and companies need to follow up in time to ensure that their products meet the latest requirements.
6. The development trend
Green environmental protection technology innovation
In the future, food-grade offset printing inks will develop in a more green and environmentally friendly direction. R&D personnel will continue to explore new raw materials and production processes to further reduce the content of harmful substances in the ink, and even achieve complete degradability of the ink. For example, the development of new inks using bio-based materials reduces dependence on petroleum-based raw materials and reduces environmental impact.
Integration with new technologies
With the continuous development of digital printing technology, nanotechnology, etc., food-grade offset printing inks will also be integrated with it. Digital printing can achieve personalized and customized packaging printing, and food-grade offset printing inks need to adapt to the requirements of digital printing and develop products suitable for digital printing equipment; Nanotechnology can improve the performance of inks, such as improving the wear resistance and water resistance of inks, and give inks new characteristics by adding nanoparticles to inks.
Strengthen quality control and testing
In order to ensure the quality and safety of food-grade offset printing inks, enterprises will strengthen quality control and product testing in the production process. Using advanced testing technology and equipment, the harmful substances in the ink are accurately detected, and a perfect quality traceability system is established, so that problems can be traced and solved in time to protect the rights and interests of consumers and food safety.
As an important part of ensuring food safety, food-grade offset printing inks play an indispensable role in the modern packaging and printing industry. Although it faces challenges in many aspects such as cost, performance and regulations, with the continuous progress and innovation of technology, food-grade offset printing ink will develop in the direction of more safety, efficiency and environmental protection, providing reliable protection for packaging and printing in food, medicine and other industries, and protecting the health of consumers.
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