Packaging
SUN CHEMICAL DEMONSTRATES LEADING PACKAGING SOLUTIONS
Saturday 31. May 2008 - At drupa 2008, Sun Chemical is presenting a unique range of cutting-edge technologies and customer-focused services for the whole packaging industry, highlighting its expertise and capabilities as a single source supplier.
Under the theme Working for You, Sun Chemical, a PrintCity alliance member, produces a range of innovative printing inks, pigments and coatings solutions for the whole packaging market. These include flexo, gravure, energy curable, digital and offset inks as well as broader industry workflow solutions including SmartColour colour management solutions, brand protection, FastJet digital presses and new functional barrier-coating technologies. The breadth of these capabilities, combined with Sun Chemical’s wealth of expertise across a wide range of applications, means its customers benefit from increased speed to market, inspirational design and print solutions, and right first-time capabilities day in, day out.
Brand Enhancement
Sun Chemical is showing surface tactile effects, one example of its extensive range of inks and coatings that can help provide extra appeal to branded packaging. These unique effects, which can be pattern applied in register to the graphic design, enable shelf stand out and provide an immediate engagement feature with consumers to communicate a sensory appeal to consumers.
Increasingly, brand owners, designers and printers are requesting printable inks or coatings that appeal to consumers senses, to give branded packaging more interest and to confirm a feeling of value. Sun Chemical is in an unrivalled position to give advice to people who wish to incorporate printable brand enhancement effects in their designs at the earliest stage of the design and development process.
Functional Coatings
To meet the demands of todays packaging environment, such as waste management legislation, material intensification, cost reductions and shelf-life extension of perishable foodstuffs, Sun Chemical has developed a range of polymer-composite barrier coating solutions for food packaging. These products are designed to replace conventional barrier layers, such as metallised films and polymer co-extrusions in multilayer laminate structures, and can be applied in-line on existing gravure and flexo presses. Advantages include improved shelf life, package light-weighting and improved recycling.
At drupa 2008, Sun Chemical is showcasing its latest innovation in barrier-coatings.
Its enhanced oxygen barrier coating allows converters and brand owners to add functionality to their products. It offers improved shelf life and recyclability, and can help reduce packaging weight by up to 30% versus conventional coatings and films.
Low Migration
Consumers are demanding ever higher standards in packaging, particularly for sensitive food and confectionery products, where the packaging must not transfer materials than can adversely affect quality, odour, taste and health.
At drupa 2008, Sun Chemical is bringing together its range of low-migration offset and flexo inks for printing and packaging. Many of these inks use innovative technologies, such as the patented M-Cure polymeric photoinitiators, to deliver effective low migration performance and provide a high level of confidence amongst users.
Of special note for offset printing at drupa 2008 are Irocart LMQ and SunCure ULM for paper and board packaging and SunCure FLM and SunBeam ELM for plastics and other non-pervious materials.
Sun Chemical will also have a number of low-migration solutions for flexible packaging on show. These include Solarflex LM, the new generation low migration, high quality UV flexo inks for printing paper, board and film packaging. Solarflex LM will also be presented in an inert UV curing version in partnership with Gidue, Air Liquide and other key industry partners. The UV Flexo for Food Packaging project team will be offering the first turnkey mid-web UV flexo concept specifically designed to provide cost effective, solvent free printing onto standard flexible packaging films.
In addition, Sun Chemical is partnering with Energy Sciences Inc (ESI) and Comexi Group to showcase the Wetflex flexographic printing technology at drupa 2008 – its first public demonstration. WetFlex uses a new generation of Energy Curable ink technology specially developed and patented by Sun Chemical for the process. The Wetflex inks are wet trapped using a Comexi Common Impression (CI) cylinder press and cured instantly by exposure to ESIs EZCure-DF EB in-line electron beam at the end of the press. The process provides quick, efficient and high quality low migration printing for food packaging, which is VOC-free and produces no CO2 emissions.
Environment
Sustainability and the environment are increasingly significant topics for the packaging industry. Sun Chemical has already committed to leading the industry in developing and producing products which help minimise the impact on the environment, while maximising the use of renewable resources.
Providing sustainable solutions and careful environmental stewardship are at the heart of the companys daily work and its strategic direction, and, in the Packaging sector, it has already taken positive steps forward. These include the use of natural starch in packaging inks for corrugated applications and developing pioneering flexo inks to help reduce emissions of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs).
At drupa 2008, in collaboration with PrintCity, Sun Chemical is communicating environmental solutions and guidance to visitors through a questions and answers brochure and consulting services available on its stand. It will also be showing some new development concepts in the area of sustainable packaging printing.
Security and Brand Protection
For the first time at a drupa show, Sun Chemical is showing security and brand protection as part of its overall packaging solutions. This is one example of the specialist markets within which the company has an ever-expanding presence. Sun Chemical has been active for several years and has grown a customer profile of national governments, major brand owners around the world and converters interested in offering brand protection features as part of their own portfolio. Visitors to the show can explore the companys products, which go from generic entry-level up to very high security proprietary technologies. Sun Chemicals speciality is product and document authentication, which means being able to distinguish a fake item from the genuine product at the touch of a button using covert machine-readable inks and coatings at any point in the supply chain.
FastJet
Visitors to drupa will have an opportunity to attend a full demonstration of FastJet, the worlds fastest inkjet printing press for corrugated packaging.
FastJet had been developed for printing corrugated sheets, particularly within the fast growing market for multi-colour, shelf-ready packaging and display applications. It is capable of printing thousands of square meters per hour in full colour, and economically serves the packaging market with short and medium run orders. It enables corrugated printers to respond better to the ever increasing demand for smaller, just-in-time jobs, as well as opening up new markets for customised packaging and display materials.