Project background

Packaging and printing industry is the key source of VOCs emission in China. At present, gravure printing is the main way of packaging material printing. More than 60% of packaging products of cigarette package printing adopt gravure printing, which is one of the key areas of VOCs emission. In order to solve the problem of VOCs emission and residue of organic solvents in gravure press, two methods of solvent recovery and combustion are mainly used. The two methods have disadvantages: high operating costs, inadequate and incomplete disposal, so the general enterprises are reluctant to adopt them; the combustion method also has the problems of carbon emission and air pollution, which is a temporary and permanent method.

Policy interpretation

Since 2013, the state has put forward the requirements for comprehensive treatment of volatile organic compounds in the packaging and printing industry, and VOCs control in the packaging and printing industry has risen to the national level. In recent years, it is particularly urgent to control VOC emissions in key industries such as packaging and printing.

Solvent free gravure printing is a printing method that uses 100% solid content ink (without any organic solvent) and is dried by led-uv light irradiation. As the ink used in each color group is UV ink, and the ink does not contain organic solvents, the generation and emission of VOCs have been eliminated from the source. The technology has been included in the only printing solution (Annex 1) of the national advanced pollution prevention and control technology catalogue issued by the Ministry of environmental protection in 2016; and the "2020 tackling key problems of volatile organic compounds control" issued by the Ministry of ecological environment The plan (June 23, 2020) advocates a highly consistent direction and method in the first objective: "vigorously promote source substitution and effectively reduce VOCs generation".

R & D innovation elements

Solvent free gravure ink

Solvent free gravure ink has fine particles (up to nanometer level), instant curing, dot enlargement, almost impervious, less consumption, good adhesion, wide range of printing materials; high color strength, stable viscosity, full and bright color, and no fading, which is suitable for packaging products with spot color as one of the anti-counterfeiting marks; the brightness and surface strength of ink film of printed products are high, with high brightness and surface strength Excellent friction resistance, scratch resistance, chemical resistance and heat resistance. As the ink components do not contain organic solvents, the printing process does not need to add solvents. Therefore, solvent-free ink in the production and use of ink will not emit harmful substances to the atmosphere, achieving zero VOCs emission in the printing process, and the solvent residue in cigarette label printing is almost zero. According to the detection of cigarette product quality inspection center of Yunnan Tobacco Industry Co., Ltd., there are eight categories of detection items, more than 90 indexes, only 6 items are detected, the detection value is far lower than the national and tobacco industry standards, the rest are not detected (see Annex 3).

Solvent free LED cold light curing printing technology

Compared with the traditional gravure printing technology, the drying energy consumption of the printing process is reduced by 70%, which realizes the real energy saving and environmental protection.