“The future of UV printing technology will continue to grow. Analysis of the development trend shows that UV printing technology is one of the growth points for the printing industry in the future.”

—— Zhang Guorui, an active advocate of Chinese UV printing technology

The printing industry has been inspired by waves of UV printing technology. All products are trying to improve their position with UV printing technology. There is no doubt that the entire printing industry is undergoing a development centered on UV printing technology. However, in this development war, the power of supplies is multiple? How much attention has been paid to the rise of domestic consumables manufacturers?

The old manufacturers are still standing in the market, and new manufacturers come to the fore. We have tried to find out from various manufacturers of UV printing consumables who can promote the development of UV printing consumables technology. Who can bring new elements to the rapid development of the UV printing consumables industry?

In the competition with foreign products, the demand for "advancedness" has always been the most basic factor for domestic companies to continuously pursue progress. These basic factors have formed a batch after batch of new Chinese forces of UV printing consumables in this era of innovation as the main line...

Rapid market development

In the late 1980s, UV inks were introduced into China only to print a small card - fast on these non-ink-absorbing hard substrates. At that time, we only knew that this UV printing technology gave us just a quick drying and was very suitable for hard substrates. Now, with the UV printing technology of millions of users, its development trend continues to expand: it helps users improve efficiency and reduce costs; UV printing and printing short-lived, high efficiency, high efficiency, is any other printing technology Incomparable; compared with ordinary inks, UV inks have no VOC contamination; In addition, UV printing can be applied in different fields, both liquid UV inks and hybrid UV inks; In terms of adhesion of substrate surface, UV The ink is better than ordinary ink, more flexible, can be cured after the image is printed offline, does not affect the image quality. UV printing is moving into new areas.

Like UV printing is thriving, UV printing supplies also play high-profile notes.

Since the previous years, UV printing has begun to play an increasingly important role in promoting product sales. During this time, sales of printers applying UV printing technology almost tripled, leaving competitors in the traditional offset printing market untouchable. According to European equipment manufacturers, the annual growth rate of UV printers will reach 7%, the annual growth rate of UV curing devices will reach 10%, and the growth rate of UV inks and coatings will be the fastest, reaching 14%.

The world's demand for UV printing is on the rise. According to the statistics of the largest ink manufacturer in the United States, the annual consumption of UV inks and coating oil in the local market has increased by about 15%. This figure is almost 10 times the annual growth rate of ink supplies in the traditional offset printing market. Mixed ink was once considered a flash in the pan, but now it is increasingly respected by the market.

Compared with the situation where the development of UV printing supplies in the world has stabilized, the Chinese market is in the limelight of development.

Higher quality requirements

Unlike ordinary printing, when printing with UV inks, the ink roller, blanket, fountain solution, etc. must be UV-specific because UV inks will damage ordinary ink rollers or blankets, and normal fountain solutions cannot interact with UV inks. match. Hybrid UV inks can use the original ink roller and blanket. Due to the combination of UV ink components, it is not possible to damage the ink roller, but printing can be performed normally. When using pure UV inks, the UV lamp must be installed after each unit. Using a mixed ink requires only one UV lamp after the four-color printing, and three UV lamps after the coating process. When using the mixed ink, the next color printing (wet pressing wet) can be performed when the previous color is not dry, and the entire color ink is printed and then cured using a UV lamp.

Based on the above factors, UV printing technology has also put forward higher requirements for related accessory products.

Difficult to find domestic products

If you list the brands of UV printing consumables products, you may have numerous answers, such as inks, coating oils, accessories, and cleaning agents. No one can deny that, as with UV printing technology, most of the current UV printing. The production status of consumables manufacturers is increasing in size, and the UV printing consumables market appears to be growing steadily and tends to be mature and stable. So, is that true?

After careful observation, it is not difficult to see that UV ink manufacturers, such as Tianjin Dongyang Ink Co., Ltd. and Hanghua Ink Chemical Co., Ltd. and other well-known manufacturers, have added "joint venture" components to blanket manufacturers such as Shanghai Meiji. Rubber Products Co., Ltd. and other well-known blanket manufacturers, the main technical content and production processes are occupied by the joint venture company.

UV printing consumable products are almost exclusively monopolized by foreign or joint-venture brands, and domestic manufacturers are not only very few, but products can only be paralyzed at the low-level level.

Raw material problems

What support do we need to print a good UV print? High-grade inks, high-grade glazing oils, high-grade rubber rollers and rubber blankets, and even high-end UV printing equipment, and the backing of high-end products depends on imports.

There is no doubt that the core technology of UV printing supplies is the supply of raw materials. UV inks, whose core raw materials are: oligomers, also known as prepolymers, are film-forming substances, whose properties play an important role in the curing process and the properties of the cured film; reactive diluents, also called cross-linking monomers, are A functional monomer whose function is to adjust the viscosity, curing speed and properties of the cured film; photoinitiator, capable of absorbing radiation energy, and chemically altering to produce an active intermediate with the ability to initiate polymerization, is any UV curing system The main ingredients are all needed; auxiliaries are mainly used to improve the performance of the ink. The supply of these core raw materials is still mainly imported in high-end products.

In terms of rubber rollers and rubber blankets, because UV inks are corrosive, the products must have high corrosion resistance. Obviously, in the immature Chinese rubber rollers and rubber blankets industry, our company will find it difficult to find a solution to this problem. The breakthrough point of the problem. Because, in the production, the choice of plastic material is very important, but most domestic enterprises with a certain scale are still measuring the “winning”, rubber material supply is a bottleneck.

Among chemical materials such as cleaning agents, Shanghai Weigra Printing Equipment Co., Ltd. is an agency that specializes in the sales of a well-known brand of printing and cleaning agents abroad. The products occupy a considerable share in the high-end cleaning products market. In this area, it is rare to see domestic enterprises. .

break the ice

The unfavorable factors of the domestic UV printing consumable products that cannot support the facade are first of all technically impossible to break through.

When UV technology brings enough joy to the printing market, domestic manufacturers of UV printing consumables see the trend of development in this area and have cooperated with foreign companies one after another. But behind the cooperation, has domestic products brought real technical improvements? From the consumable manufacturers who already have a considerable scale, we can see that the injection of foreign elements not only brings a huge amount of processing operations, but also in technology and management, we can hardly see the “made in China” mark.

It can be seen that the development of domestic UV printing consumable products is closely related to the development of other industries such as chemical industry, and only if their strength continues to expand can they in turn promote the development of UV printing consumables technology.

In terms of cost, foreign products also have considerable advantages. On the one hand, the scale of production is large and the cost of products is reduced. On the other hand, with the opening of domestic trade, the import tax is gradually reduced and the price is already low, which is highly favored by users.

The above two major factors have already suppressed the development of Chinese companies.

Although the production situation of domestic enterprises is not optimistic, domestic UV printing consumables products have undergone rapid development in the production and processing technology in recent years, and many domestic companies have come to the fore.

In some ink production companies, in addition to the main raw material imports, the ink production process has reached the world advanced level, has produced middle and low-grade UV inks.

The UV photo varnishes independently developed by Lekai Polymer Materials Technology Development Co., Ltd. have also been introduced to the market recently.

The UV printing plate product developed by Lekai Digluon can also be comparable to foreign products.

In the rubber roller products, Beihua Jiuyin Technology Co., Ltd. and other undercurrents surged. Like ink manufacturers, their products are quickly applied nationwide without any market promotion. The company has high-quality talents and strong academic background. , In terms of rubber, improve the quality of the product.

There is also a company that has already taken root and has been certified by the international FOGRA certification.

What is supporting the development of these domestic forces? The opportunity brought by UV printing, the development of chemical technology, and the new understanding of technology by enterprises have all brought changes to domestic UV printing consumables companies.

The development of the UV printing consumables industry in China has entered a critical period. The speed of industrial development has slowed down, and the rationality of industrial investment has increased. The entire industry is gradually becoming mature. In this process, the constraining factors that accompany the development of the industry have gradually emerged. How can we shake off the “incremental increase efficiency” shadow? In the face of the ever-deep, increasingly saturated UV printing consumables industry, who can become a booster for the development of the industry?

The transformation of China's UV printing consumables industry calls for the development of core technologies and new management styles. Whether domestic new UV printing forces will bring about a series of technological innovations, business model innovations, and even management concept innovations, we look forward to!

Reprinted from: Printed Materials in China