Ink and toner: the key factors for high-quality digital printing

With the continuous advancement of ink and toner technology, the quality of digital printing has also been unprecedentedly improved.

When people buy digital printing solutions, they often fall into the trap of non-important indicators such as rated speed. People's attention is easily attracted by the latest advances in printer heads and resolutions, because these are after all seemingly fancy things.

However, consumables are still an indispensable part of the printing equation. The choice of ink, toner, and substrate directly determines the resolution of the image and the overall customer requirements for the job.

Consumables advance the development of printing

Some people may think: "Toner is just toner," and their basic composition is the same. Toners are everywhere in our lives and we can easily get them. It is like piloting an airplane. Just put the cartridge in place and turn on the switch. The printer can start production.

But the topic of toner is a little more complicated. There are huge and minor differences in the toner products used in digital printing solutions. At the very least, they all have different shapes and sizes.

Polymerized toners based on polyester are now becoming more and more popular because they have strong adhesion, can be produced at higher speeds, and the overall performance is also outstanding. This point has been approved by Chuck Havens, Material Sales Manager of Kodak Graphic Text Group, and Arun Chowdry, Technical Development Manager.

The Kodak Graphic and Video Group is responsible for producing toner for all its digital printing equipment, and has made great progress in color gamut, environmental protection, and resistance to printing. In the past few years, the company has continuously introduced green, orange, and purple inks; clear inks for in-line coating and protective coating, and MICR toners for Kodak's DIGIMASTER digital production systems.

MaryFromm, manager of the toner and developer production company of the Xerox Group, pointed out: "Toner technology has made remarkable progress in recent years, and changes in market trends have also directly affected our development and production strategy for toner."

"For example," Fromm explained: "Ten years ago, we just started to seek success in the field of color digital printing, and now color printing has become the most important part of the entire company's business. In order to meet the market for color products With the demand for new color printing methods, we have also made significant adjustments to the design and production methods of toner."

Xerox is currently producing some of its own toner products using a process called Emulsion/Aggregation. Fromm revealed to us the difference between this method and other production processes. He said: “In the past, we mainly produced toners by physical methods. We first mixed different materials together and then ground them to have Precise size of small particles.” Emulsion/Aggregation initially produced tiny particles that would then be sized and shaped according to the requirements of the printer to achieve the best printing results.

Fromm said: "In recent years, we have achieved good results through the implementation of lean production management within Xerox. These measures have enabled us to improve the quality of the project and increase the capabilities of consumables, thereby further enhancing the reliability of production."

Canon USA has developed a total of four brands of toner, each designed to meet a specific printing equipment and printing market. VividToner (VToner) is Canon’s product for high-quality color copiers.

Its average particle size is only 5.5 microns. According to the company, the toner can reduce dot gain, ensure consistent image quality, and better maintain gloss uniformity during high-speed printing/copying.

In addition to the aforementioned VividToner, Canon also introduced three toners for office color copiers, medium-speed black and white copiers, and high-speed black-and-white copiers, including Spherical&SynergyToner, QuickFixingToner, and HighReliabilityToner.

At the same time, Canon has also been working hard to improve the performance of LUCIA inks, which are mainly used on the Canon imagePROGRAF 12-color printers. The LUCIA series currently contains five new inks: Gray, PhotoGray, Red, Green, and Blue. Adding gray ink will allow imagePROGRAF users to produce smoother tones, while RGB inks will give people a broader color gamut. And LUCIA inks use a very unique formula that can be used with a variety of substrates.

Mix of fine ingredients

The owners of printing companies should not be ashamed to ask ink and toner manufacturers about problems related to product performance. They should understand whether these consumables are suitable for their own equipment and they must be rigorously tested to ensure that they meet operational requirements.

Hewlett-Packard wrote this sentence on his website: "HP substrates, printers, and inks are all designed together and can be used as a complete system."

For example, Hewlett-Packard has designed specially formulated inks for its large format printers and related substrates. For its own toner printing solution, the company also improved the toner particles to enable them to quickly fuse and print clearer text and images.

For HP Say been printing presses, the company introduced two levels of ink in order to better meet certain production requirements. HP's Angels Supreme is ideal for high-volume high-quality printing, while HP Saturn's Classic ink is suitable for printing plants that want to achieve high print quality and uninterrupted production.

Most of Hewlett-Packard's Sai Angel inks are manufactured in their ISO-certified factories, and their products have achieved outstanding results in a number of tests, such as: flash point, surface tension, viscosity, particle size , drying speed, color intensity, color and gloss, and conductivity.

Xerox’s Fromm said: “High-speed printing production puts some pressure on the performance of the imaging system. The printer must run at maximum speed, while customers in the production environment also have print quality, reliability, and press time for preparation. A very high standard was proposed."