Flexographic
Use evaporative drying, UV or EB inks. Inks for polyethylene and polypropylene are acceptable.
Inks can be waterborne, solvent born or 100% solids.
Make sure waterborne inks wet the surface of the coated material. It has a free surface energy of 42-43 dynes/cm.
Use inks at as high of solids and viscosity as practical.
Use extender inks or varnish rather than diluent solvents to control viscosity and print density.
Use careful setting of the plate cylinder-impression roll nip. Material is not compressible and if too high of nip pressure will result in haloing, mottling and low ink density.
Avoid aliphatic solvents and diluents.
Use static eliminators.
EcoTag™ offers an excellent print surface for Siegwerk EIC’s water based flexographic inks on both sides of the substrate. The substrates can be corona treated to improve initial and aged adhesion properties if needed. Depending on the end use properties of the tag/label (i.e. horticultural tag, lumber tag, shelf tag, outdoor/indoor signage, etc.), various ink options are available.
Siegwerk EIC recommends the following ink combination of horticultural tags:
1/D EC001245 (Film III Extender Varnish)
2/D Film III Fade Resistant or Super Fade Resistant inks
(depending on the Weatherometer specifications required for the customer’s application)
3/D EC001245 (Film III Extender Varnish) with 3% EH012409 (Aqueous Catalyst)
The film III inks are moderately pigmented therefore the inks are capable of achieving color and good print quality on 300-800 Isi with 3.0 to 6.0 bcm volume aniloxes. The ink combination listed above provides excellent dry & wet rub, scratch resistance, tape adhesion, water resistance, detergent and some solvent resistance. The film III inks offer the best package for outdoor exposure to the elements and the sun in terms of Weatherometer testing.
Recommend cleaning the ink/OPV with CLN1V0006 (Suspend NL)
*Check with your Siegwerk EIC lab for the product recommendations for other print applications on Eco Tag substrates.
*Poly Screen Plus inks are a high color density, clean printing ink system that can be used on Eco tag substrates.
*Siegwerk EIC’s L-39 UV Flexo inks, with select UV coatings, appear to be excellent options for the Eco tag substrates and are currently being evaluated for print performance.
