Flexographic printing process technology

It began in 1853 when Kingsley of the United States obtained the patent for rubber printing plates

In the 1860s, a simple printing press emerged, using aniline dye ink and elastic rubber as the plate material - aniline printing or rubber plate printing

Aniline dye ink is very bright, but it is prone to fading and toxic. Currently, it has been replaced by dyes or pigments that do not fade and have strong lightfastness.

In 1952, the 14th Packaging and Printing Conference replaced "aniline printing" with "flexographic printing".

In recent decades, there have been significant advancements in four major aspects: printing plates, inks, ink delivery systems, and printing machines, making it another major printing process following letterpress, offset, and gravure printing.

The elastic raised image printing plate is used. The printing plate can be adhered to the printing plate cylinder, and the printing plate is inked by a metal anilox roller engraved with ink holes. The mesh pattern ink transfer roller is controlled by another ink roller or ink scraper for the ink delivery volume. Liquid and lipid inks can be transferred to all kinds of substrates in reality.

The ink transfer during flexographic printing is very simple. Low-viscosity and high-fluidity ink is filled into the tiny ink holes of the anilox roller. The excess ink is scraped off by the squeegee, and the ink remaining in the ink holes of the anilox roller is then transferred to the embossed graphics on the flexographic plate. When the ink area on the printing plate comes into contact with the substrate, a "lip print" is formed. Gently press the lip print and the ink transfer is completed.

To remain invincible in the current highly competitive market, how to quickly improve printing quality with a relatively small investment is a concern for everyone. Flexographic printing has also entered a new development period. Today, the editor will also introduce the differences between different plate materials and isgo's flexographic plate materials.