Heated blanket belt

At present, Landa is using a modified version of the Kyocera piezo inkjet printheads for its ‘ink ejectors’, with the integration carried out by specialist company Graph-Tech of Switzerland. But Landa’s tech isn’t tied to one manufacturer or type of printhead though.

“Billions of dollars are being invested in inkjet technology development by many companies. We simply leverage that investment – all vendors are potential partners for us,” says Landa, who was also spotted during Drupa investigating the Konica Minolta heads being shown by the manufacturer’s external sales wing, Industrial Inkjet.

In the Nanography process, the ink ejectors create a complete CMYK print image by ejecting drops of NanoInk onto a heated blanket belt.

The image is dried on the belt, which is understood to be heated to around 120?C, forming an ultra-thin polymeric film. This film, which could be likened to a decal, then meets the printing substrate at an impression cylinder, and is transferred to it via pressure.

Just before the image is transferred, an infrared booster lamp kicks in, providing the necessary temperature for the transfer to work properly. “It requires very little energy – the ink film has to be a certain temperature to transfer. We just bump it up to that before transfer,” Landa explains. “This is only a fraction of the heat that is used for drying conventional print; it is not like fusing.”

The blanket belt is an operator-replaceable component that is estimated to have a life of around 500,000 impressions, although it is expected to be greater than this by the time presses actually ship.

The sheets coming off the press feel barely warm, because it’s not the substrate itself that is heated, it’s the blanket. Printed output can immediately be used in finishing processes, claims Landa, due to NanoInk’s high level of scratch- and abrasion-resistance. The Landa press operators at Drupa were seen demonstrating this by rubbing a coin across freshly printed sheets.

One major selling point of Nanography is its ability to print onto standard printing papers, whether coated or uncoated, and also onto non-absorbent synthetics such as plastic films. The NanoInk layer’s thinness means it conforms to gloss levels of the stock.

The sheetfed Landa presses are based on sheet transfer and gripper technology from Komori, which was also the first traditional press manufacturer to sign up as a partner to license Nanography. Manroland Sheetfed and Heidelberg have followed suit with pledges to develop presses using the technology. More partners are expected to be announced in various segments and markets.