Etchless Ink

Technology is advancing rapidly in the printing industry today - we have seen more advances in the last five years than we have in the last 50 years. While most of the technology has been in the pre-press area, advances in the press room have been made as well. Ink, for example, is getting better – soy, quickset and other new inks are hitting the market. One new ink that has recently been introduced is called “Etchless” inks. These are inks that require no fountain etch, so the press crew can run plain water in the fountain. Being able to do this would, over the long haul, reduce VOC’s (Volatile Organic Compounds), making the printer even more environmentally friendly.

There are other claims as well, based on studies that the use of this ink in heatset web gives less dot gain, lower oven temperatures and the elimination (or reduction) of piling/blanket whitening, thus reducing cost and improving print quality. Most, if not all, studies have been on coated papers, however.

We wanted to see how this new ink might work with uncoated paper when heatset web printed, so International Paper partnered with Midwest Ink Company (Chicago, IL), the inventor of the etchless technology. To conduct this study, we ran 72,000 signatures of 60 lb Accent^® Opaque, Smooth. The study was conducted at the Rochester Institute of Technology on their Heidelberg Sunday 2000 heatset web. A speed of 1,600 feet/min was established, which equals 50,600 signatures per hour.

Process color was run with a test containing approximately 80% total ink coverage. To verify any changes, the same grade was run with normal heatset inks. In this way, we could establish if lower dryer temperatures and any other print attributes could be determined.

In a nutshell, it was found that when running uncoated there was no benefit to using etchless ink. We were able to lower the dryer temperature by only 10 degrees, which we matched when running with conventional heatset inks (Flint Arroweb). We looked at dot gain and print contrast as well, which would show up whether the elimination of the fountain etch had any bearing. The following was reported:

What the above chart shows is we experienced more dot gain and screen plugging in the shadow areas when running with the etchless inks. The CRI data (contrast resolution index) shows the differences in dot gain for the same ink density run. Print Contrast tells us about the ability of a paper/ink to hold up in the shadow areas. The higher the number, the less plugging experienced. All paper run printed clean, and we were unable to determine any of the claims that the ink would reduce blanket whitening/piling. Both the conventional heatset ink and the etchless inks had near identical ink tacks.

Today the etchless inks are, in most cases, a little more expensive than their conventional counterparts. The key is, does the higher cost of the etchless inks offset the elimination of purchasing fountain etch? Does the slight loss in print quality offset the cost? As this was only one trial, additional trials will be completed to determine if these results can be repeated.