The sustainability of printed products has long been the focus of hubergroup Print Solutions' research activities. Now the international printing ink specialist has taken a further step towards improving the environmental balance of its products: the UV ink series for sheetfed and web offset printing as well as for continuous printing achieved very good results in deinking tests and thus received deinking certificates. A large proportion of the raw materials for these ink series are produced in-house by hubergroup's Chemicals Division, which enables the company to ensure a sustainable value chain.
Focus on recyclability
UV printing inks offer enormous advantages in the printing process due to their fast drying. However, they are often difficult to recycle because they leave visible traces in the recycled paper. To ensure that the corresponding printed products can be safely fed into the recycling process, hubergroup has now revised the UV ink series NewV set UEL4000, NewV pack UG5000 and NewV poly UP5000. In addition, the newly developed NewV news UNL4000, an LED UV ink series for web offset printing, can also be deinked. The PMV department of the Technical University of Darmstadt evaluated these ink series on the basis of INGEDE method 11 and certified very good deinkability on coated papers. The NewV set and NewV poly series are also characterised by good deinkability on uncoated papers.
The deinkable UV ink series from hubergroup can be used in commercial, packaging and newspaper printing. Commercial printers can cover the entire UV commercial range with the deinkable inks, as the NewV set series can be used for iron-doped and LED curing systems, while the NewV pack and NewV poly series are suitable for mercury curing systems. With the NewV news LED UV series, newspaper printers have the opportunity to expand their range with high-quality, commercial-like products and thus better utilise their press capacities.
Sustainability along the value chain
Roland Schröder, Product Manager UV Europe at hubergroup, explains: "We are continuously working on improving the environmental performance of our products. This also enables us to offer our customers even more sustainable production. It was therefore important to us to ensure good deinkability of our UV inks - while maintaining the same print quality, of course."
Sustainability also already plays an important role in the production of the printing inks: as a large proportion of the raw materials come from the company's own Chemicals Division, hubergroup can define its own environmental standards and ensure a sustainable value chain. Roland Schröder promises: "We take a holistic view of sustainability, which is why we already set high standards in raw material production."
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