Sun Chemical’s Simon Daplyn on Wide-Format, Packaging Developments

At the recent FESPA World Print Expo in Barcelona, Spain, Wide-format Impressions content director Dan Marx sat down with Simon Daplyn, product marketing manager, Sun Chemical, for a wide-ranging discussion including ink development, sustainability, and geopolitical conditions.

Dan Marx: In terms of Sun Chemical, what would you say the new developments are in the printing industry?

Simon Daplyn, product marketing manager, Sun Chemical

Simon Daplyn: I mean, generally, if we just take very broad strokes, a lot of the development right now is in aqueous ink. There's a big pull in the market for water-based technology across the spectrum,  from wide-format all the way through to packaging and beyond. We've been focusing on that, so [at FESPA] we're essentially introducing a new aqueous technology for wide-format printing for the Epson i3200 head. That's suitable for blue back paper, poster printing, we've got customers doing laminate flooring with it, and also point of purchase corrugated, so it's quite a versatile kind of technology.

DM: It sounds like it's quite durable.

SD: Yes, obviously for those different requirements, each has a different challenge in terms of what it needs to do, what it means for the manufacturer, for the brand, the final output. So yeah, there's quite a lot of technology behind that.

It’s called Streamline, which is kind of its sister product for higher viscosity printers aimed at Kyocera- and Ricoh-style technology. We're really making sure we have platforms that cover any printer's requirement, be it smaller format machines, all the way through to high-level industrial.

DM: How do you see sustainability affecting both what Sun Chemical does, but also the requests you're getting from your customers?

SD: It's kind of two-fold for us. It's fundamental in everything that we do now, but I guess everyone would tell you that it's not a trend anymore. It's really a cornerstone in anything that we're developing. Looking at material sourcing, trying to use biomaterials where it's possible.

We've been looking to introduce bio-renewable sources of glycols and things like that, rather than petrochemical derivatives. So that's kind of a change in mindset in how we develop, but also from a holistic point of view. We have, as a massive global company, a big sustainability team looking at stuff.

We've also collaborated this year on a new initiative, together with the likes of HP, Nazdar, Domino, and Gallus on something called the Sustainable Print Manifesto. That's a collaboration of industry leaders trying to debunk some of the myths around sustainability, to make it simpler for users of print to understand, and how they can really take the first steps to making sure what they're doing is sustainable. So, that's an interesting initiative.

DM: In terms of those myths, what do you think is the biggest, most pernicious one?

SD: Knowing what is recyclable, what chemicals are the right choices to make, what kind of substrates … just maybe taking considered decisions about how you approach print, right from the beginning of it. It's not designed to be complex. It's fairly straightforward; I think there are nine founding principles, and it's designed to really be a framework to guide people into thinking about sustainability as they embark on whatever print processes they're using.

The other thing that obviously impacts us massively around sustainability is new legislation coming out all the time. Materials classifications, particularly in the UV space and the packaging space, obviously in Europe, who've just had the launch of the PPWR Initiative. We’re really trying to understand what that means, the implications, looking more and more at de-inking as a thing that is fundamental to what we need to be doing going forward. Because obviously product life cycle becomes a critical to that whole discussion.

DM: I've seen some presentations on de-inking, and it certainly is a challenge. How is that coming along as a sustainable action?

SD: One of the challenges we have is not every country is harmonized in what they want. So we have to be bit careful, because the reality is everyone wants the ink to stick very well to the substrate, but then you also need to be able to remove it - but not always.

For example, in the U.S., the request is for retentivity. They want the ink to stay on the label so that when they wash the label off a bottle or whatever, all of the ink and the paper can be removed as a waste product and dealt with. Then you can reuse the bottle or the can or whatever it is that had the label applied. In Europe, they’re starting to ask for that ink to also be removed. So, you've got to consider that technology, what chemicals are used, and what that means for the waste streams. It's absolutely a thing we're aware of.

DM: It seems like it's a delicate balance between you wanting the ink to stick, but then come off when you want it to come off.

SD: And the reality is everything in the world of inkjet is a compromise, right? Everything we're dealing with every day is compromising to get the best overall solution for the customers in the market.

DM: How is the regulatory or sustainability approach different in Europe than in the United States?

SD: If we just look at recycling as, let's say, a central topic, every country at the moment has different recycling waste streams. In some places, you have to separate all your trash into like paper-based plastics, glass, metal. In some countries, you just throw everything all at once and it gets sorted. In some, it depends -- what recycled and recyclable means you can have X percent of recycled content to call it recycled, or recyclable doesn't all happen. So that's a challenge in terms of just really understanding what our part needs to be.

We have a team of experts that look at the regulatory space — we're really trying to work within the guidelines. So, in Europe, we're part of the European Printing Ink Association. We sit on a lot of the boards to try and understand what's coming, and how we can support the general industry, with what materials are on watch lists. Obviously, in the U.S., it's slightly different, maybe NAPIM and other boards who have similar ideas and concepts. But it has to be realistic for certain markets. So it's the reality now in the wide-format space.

DM: What do you see as rising or falling in terms of broad ink types?

SD:  Obviously, for a while, UV has kind of been king, especially in the flatbed printing space, and there is a lot more dye-sublimation coming through. Generally we're in a fortunate position where wide-format graphics is going quite well. We certainly see a rise in UV and the demand for UV, especially in the lower viscosity space. So, UV is predominantly set in the higher viscosity space, just because of the technology behind that. We also now have low viscosity UV inks that don't require onboard heating, so that's kind of hopefully bringing an ease of use to the market in that field. Hard solvent is definitely on the way out. Where you had TurboJet machines and things like that doing the outdoor poster printing [we've seen] a definite shift towards aqueous.

Obviously, the odor of solvent starts become challenging — people don't like that. If you know, you can smell a lot of UV, but it's a different thing. With the rise of LED curing, rather than conventional, that's a lot more sustainable in terms of energy use, and it's simpler to configure into a wide-format printer, especially in the flatbed space. And the instant dry makes it so attractive.

DM: As an ink manufacturer, what is something you hope the end users, the PSPs, need to understand?

SD: The hardest part as an ink manufacturer is the first question is always on price. And it's a legitimate question, right? Especially as we're converting away from analog technology. In the packaging, or the larger throughput space, where you're maybe moving from gravure or flexographic, quite low cost inks, to a digital link, which is inherently more expensive, because there's a lot more technology in there. The conversations are always about a liter versus a kilo – the volume's not the same, because you've got more pigment in a flexo ink — it's not a like-for-like comparison.

But no one's really considering all the hidden costs of conventional printing, like engraving cylinders, storing those cylinders, washing them at the end of the print run. Obviously, with digital we don't need any of that to happen, so [they should try] to be broad-minded in terms of what that means. And then, just about what the user is looking for in terms of output, so cost is an absolutely critical question for any business.

We've got some amazing equipment on the market with very clever print heads, technology, robotics, all of that's really a tool to get the ink onto the product and the ink becomes part of the product that then goes into the market. It has a life after the printing process. The equipment's done, but the ink has to survive for X number of years. It's about making decisions that are the right ones for your brand in terms of 'am I getting the right color, do I have the right resistance properties for what that final use is, am I compliant?' Sometimes customers compromise on some of those things, for a few cents off the bottle price, without a full understanding of what the long-term implication means in terms of brand reputation, safety, that kind of thing.

DM: Looking at the digitally printed-packaging space, I know, obviously we're looking at aqueous formulations. But we're also looking at incredibly quick drying for those systems to run — what kind of a challenge is it to achieve that balance?

SD: It's a big one. The biggest challenge we have is drying it. People think water should be fairly easy to dry. But the energy you need to get rid of that, and designing with that in mind, the workflow and the printing systems we need, a lot of these now are printing around drums that are heated to start the evaporation process as quickly as possible. You've got IR drying, convection, hot air. And it's trying to be as efficient as possible with the energy use and the footprint of the machine. It is a different challenge than it was, say, using flexo. That needed to dry as well -- a lot of the success in flexo was with solvent-based inks; there are some benefits of that in terms of drying. With the aqueous we have a larger amount of water in an inkjet ink than you do in a conventional. There's just more of it to dry.

DM: In terms of general direction, particularly for inkjet, moving into the next five years, how do you think it will change what needs to happen or are there any hills yet to climb for ink chemistry?

SD: We're always trying to push the boundaries and innovate as much as possible. I think you'll continue to see the growth of UV, particularly in low migration UV, that's a question around e-beam, as that technology comes, and photo initiators in UV are the most susceptible to compliance or regulatory changes and crackdowns. We think at some point there will be a next revolution in curing technology that maybe reduces the amount of photo initiator we need to use.

But for sure, UV low migration is really taking off for us, particularly in metal packaging, direct-to-object printing, that kind of stuff, and yet aqueous will continue to grow. We're only really scratching the surface of where aqueous is going to be. There's lots of presses coming aimed at high-volume flexible packaging on non-porous materials, which is probably our biggest challenge. I think you will see better quality pigments, better resins, binders, drying systems coming to the market that start to overcome some of the challenges we've faced today.

DM: Last question, how are global geopolitical issues currently affecting Sun Chemical? What kind of a challenge is that?

SD: We can't shy away from that. Where we're lucky is we have very robust supply chains as a global company. We're able to smooth out some of the challenges in raw material availability. We definitely hear of the issues. Our big challenge is maintaining, as much as possible, the service we provide to our customers. People are obviously concerned about price increases: it's coming across-the-board. We are trying to negotiate that with the bare minimum impact on customers.

At the moment, it's really just transportation surcharges that are coming in where we're involved. But we know others have had to make tough decisions. And it may come. The hardest part at the moment is availability of vessels, and vessels that are not in the right place, not where they're meant to be. The containers aren't in the right place -- they're all stuck. One of our bigger challenges is not being able to make the ink, but being able to get them where they need to be in the time frame. They need to be there. So again, we have global teams where we've been able to write stuff off as a company of this size.

We can manufacture in different locations. We can manufacture the same product for customers in the U.S. in Asia and in Europe. So our OEM Partners can say, ‘Okay, all my U.S. and Latin customers -- I'll buy it from there for Europe.’ I kind of harmonizes some of that issue. So we're not bringing everything to every customer from a single place. It's reducing their lead times. Hopefully it's slightly kinder to the environment in terms of shipping transportation carbon emissions. But what it really does is try to smooth out any of those wrinkles that might happen because of what's going on in the world today.