At the Marabu booth, visitors from all over the world got in touch with applications for decorative and functional printing inks on plastics.  It was the perfect chance to get informed about all novelties and established products from Marabu. Exciting live demonstrations confirmed all the benefits of the Marabu product range to the expert audience.

Increased consumer safety thanks to low migration inks

The demand for low migration inks rises along with the requirements for consumer protection, especially when it comes to toys, promotional gifts, or packaging such as beverage or baby bottles. In this regard, Marabu displayed the ink system Tampaplus TPL. The formulation of the very fast drying and resistant pad printing ink was adapted to the latest regulations. Tampaplus TPL contains neither aromatic solvents, nor PAA, and features lowest PAH values, thus making a significant contribution to consumer-safe packaging.

Also free of aromatic hydrocarbons and halogens is the pad printing ink system TampaRotaSpeed TPHF. The ink fits for printing on bottle caps and captivates by its excellent printability, fast drying, and high resistance.

Furthermore, the international audience was convinced by the low migration UV screen printing ink Ultrapack UVFP: Its formulation is ideal for printing on the exterior of food packaging and fully complies with the EuPIA Photoinitiator Suitablity List 1A as well as the Swiss Ordinance on Material and Articles in Contact with Food (SR 817.023.21.).

UV-curable ink systems

At the K 2013 the increased demand for UV-curable ink systems was also obvious. Marabu presented a new approach for inmould decoration. At present, solvent-based screen printing inks are the standard in IMD. But after extensive research and development, Marabu is now able to present the first UV-curable ink system to offer a real alternative: Ultramold UVPC. Also an important topic: rapid UV curing for membrane switches. The ink system Ultraswitch UVSW guarantees all the advantages of the UV curing process such as unlimited mesh opening, stable colour accuracy, and high production speeds. At the same time, it also meets the stringent technical requirements of membrane switch manufactures.

UV LED is set to play a more and more important role in screen printing. Today, UV LED lamps are already used for applications such as printing on labels or plastic containers. Used on hybrid machines, which combine screen, and flexo printing, Marabu’s UV LED-curable screen printing inks UltraPack LEDC and LEDX achieve convincing results for printing directly onto tubes.

More application alternatives by digital printing

Another trend is towards digital printing. Where screen or pad printing were exclusively used for specific applications, now, the increased demand for solutions for digital printing is evident. According to this development, Marabu’s wide product range of inkjet inks attracted great attention, especially the UV LED curable ink system UltraJet DLE-A and the traditional curable ink series UltraJet DUV-A. The suitable substrates include rigid materials such as acrylics, rigid PVC, aluminum composite panels (e.g. Dibond?), polycarbonate or polypropylene, as well as flexible substrates such as self-adhesive sheets or tarpaulins made ??of soft PVC. Marabu demonstrated the advantages of DLE-A at the booth every day by printing directly on advertising material with a Mimaki UJF-3042.