Beside the strong demand on reducing production cost of packaging materials, quality is an important issue for this segment. Production cost and end product quality are strongly liked. A comprehensive knowledge on how various paper properties influence the quality of the end product will give strategies to both enhance quality and/or reduce production cost.
Packaging materials such as liquid boards, sack paper, liner, MG-paper, etc. are printed in flexography and most often further converted in an extrusion process, were polyethylene or other barrier materials are laid on the paper/board surface. Paper properties and in particular surface properties, such as topography and absorptivity, as well as the uniformity of these properties are of significant importance for the quality of the end product.
Goal
The cluster research focuses on flexography printing with special emphasis to outline the importance of the absorption potential of the substrate and the non-uniformity of surface properties, with special focus on absorptivity.
One specific task is to develop a robust device to measure ink absorption by packaging materials at the production unit. This will enable the producer to fine-tune their product development towards optimal ink absorption properties. The cluster also aims to study adhesion properties between barrier materials, such as polyethylene and the packaging material, printed or non-printed.