David Savastano, Editor10.20.21
It has been almost two years since the National Association of Printing Ink Manufacturers (NAPIM) has been able to host an in-person event. The COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of the 2020 and 2021 Annual Convention, the 2020 Annual Technical Conference, and NAPIM’s 2020 and 2021 Summer Courses.
While the 2020 Technical Conference was held virtually, it just wasn’t the same.
Thankfully, NAPIM’s three-day 2021 Annual Technical Conference, which began Oct. 12 at the Drake Hotel in Oak Brook, IL, was live, and drew a surprisingly large turnout considering the circumstances. With the theme of ‘The Ink Industry: Adaptable, Flexible, Resilient!’, more than 80 attendees heard the latest information on the economy, technology and regulatory matters, and also enjoyed the opportunity to see one another again.
John Copeland, NAPIM’s executive director, said that the feedback has been excellent.
“I think the conference has gone extremely well – we had a really great sprit during the conference, a lot of positive feelings and the conference itself had some great presentations,” Copeland said. “We had a strong keynote speaker, Dr. Michael Youngblood, and the Q&A could honestly have gone another half-hour easily. People are hungry for information on the economy.
“It was nice to see people enjoying interacting with their friends in the industry again, and I know there was a lot of business being discussed,” Copeland added. “The networking was a welcome change. This is our first live event in two years, and we believe this is a precursor to our upcoming annual convention, which starts April 8, 20922 in St. Petersburg at the Vinoy.”
Copeland thanked the sponsors, who included X-Rite and Pantone (Platinum sponsor); INX (NAPIM app sponsor); BASF and Ink World (Silver sponsors); Alvar, Central Ink and Ingevity (Break sponsors); and BYK, Central Ink, Ink World, NAPIM, Resolute Oil, Shamrock Technologies and Wise Technical Manufacturing (Golf sponsors).
“I think this year’s conference has been well received by all of the attendees,” added George Fuchs, director, regulatory affairs and technology at NAPIM. “It was good to see everyone. The opening session with the presentation on the current state of the economy was very interesting and the Regulatory featured a lot of hot topics.”
James Ford, technical director of Flint Group and NAPIM technical conference chair, noted that the conference went well considering the situation with the pandemic. “It’s nice to finally get to see people and get together,” Ford said. “We already have some plans in place to expand next year.”
The conference began on the morning of Tuesday, Oct. 12 with three 75-minute short courses as well as a Golf Outing. The courses are Printing Ink 101: Raw Materials Selection & Formulation, led by Toyo Ink's Doug Anderson; Printing Ink 101: Manufacturing - Milling/Grinding Operations, which will be led by Colorcon No-Tox’s Jerry Napiecek; and Printing Ink 101: Testing/Technical Support, taught by James Ford, technical director of Flint Group, and Russ Szadowski, director analytical R&D at INX International Ink Co.
After lunch, the Technical Conference featured the Opening Keynote presentation, “The U.S. Economy Challenge: Looking Back and Forward,” which was given by Dr. Michael Youngblood, professor of economics at Rock Valley College.
Dr. Youngblood gave a comprehensive look at the state of the US economy. Noting that the “big three” of economic statistics – production of goods and services, unemployment and inflation, he added that the recession of 2020 was unique.
“The recession of 2020 resulted from the ‘Perfect Storm,’” he noted. “On the demand side, lockdowns created mass unemployment and lower incomes. On the supply side, some businesses closed due to COVID outbreaks, such as meat packing. There were also supply chain disruptions, such as shortage of parts for autos and appliances, as well as government policies that impacted the economy.”
He noted that consumers were shutting down the economy before the government did, such as not going out to restaurants. All told, there was $2 trillion of lost output in the second quarter of 2020.
Unemployment numbers show a story. Before the pandemic, in February 2020, 158.7 million Americans were employed. In April 2020, 133.4 million were employed, with a 14.8% unemployment rate (now it is 4.8%).
“Workers are quitting jobs at a record rate,” Dr. Youngblood pointed out. “In July 2021, 2.7% of jobs were quit. Some is due to burnout, others don’t want to return to offices. Right now, there are 11 million job openings, which leads to increased costs of employing workers.”
Next up was Camila Boroni, technical service specialist for IGM Resins, who gave the Lawter Lecture Winner, the top technical paper. Her talk, which was written by a team led by Elena Billotti, covered “Photoinitator Blends for Enhanced Cure Speed at LED 395nm Wavelengths.”
Boroni noted that phosphine oxides are a class of key photoiniators when dealing with UV-A spectrum.
“They are well appreciated in opaque white ink formulations because they are able to absorb UV light where TIO2 is transparent to UV,” she said. “Recently, TPO, the industrial father of phosphine oxide class, was reclassified as reprotoxic class 1B, and this is worrying the market. TPO-L could be a replacement but its reactivity vs TPO is two to three times slower.
“We tried some PI blends with BAPO, and got some unexpected results when working with LED 395nm,” Boroni observed. “The curing was highly effective when some photoinitiators that are not absorbing at 395nm were combined with BAPO. We found that amines allow an average of 50% more reactivity vs Omnirad TPO. By adding half of BAPO, it reduces the yellowing.”
Sjaak Griffioen, director, innovation, strategy and sustainability for Covestro Coating Resins, gave a talk on “Sustainability.” He noted that in today’s value chain, 91% of materials are non-circular in nature.
“That is a number that is going to change,” said Griffioen. “Meanwhile, 80% of companies are focusing on environmental impact of design. Our options are having an active program on reducing energy consumption and generating energy from renewable resources, reducing dependency on fossil-based raw materials by circularity by design, and using renewable raw materials."
The Technical Conference then offered the Suppliers Showcase, featuring talks by Dhara Metla, graphic arts manager of BYK, and Dr. Kai Yang of Evonik, followed by a reception with tabletop exhibits.
Technology and Regulatory Matters
The second day offered two sessions; the morning featured technology talks, while the afternoon examined regulatory matters. The morning session opened with “Digital Color Standards – Specification to Ink Formulation to Quality Control,” presented by Mark Gundlach, solution architect with X-Rite Incorporated.
Gundlach observed that errors occur due to adjustments from different samples, adding that color variability concerns brand owners.
“Pantone is the language of color in graphic arts,” Gundlach said. “Spectral color specifications using Pantone enables expectations to be managed without ambiguity. You want to work with digital standards with spectral data, being able to build and share palettes in the cloud through PantoneLIVE.”
Walter Chmura, VP of Koenig & Bauer, covered “Offset Presses – Technology Update,” and noted that packaging presses have fared well during the pandemic.
The topic of microplstics and the potential regulation of PTFE were among the topics covered by Micro Powders VP Rich Czarnecki in his talk, “Novel Innovations in Wax Additive Technology.”
“Industry threats include the ECHA Annex XV microplastics proposal and PFOA/PFAS regulation proliferation, and the future for PTFE is kind of pessimistic, I’d say,” Czarnecki observed. “The inkies are leading the charge for the growing desire for higher natural content and non-petroleum derived materials.
Czarnecki then looked at the latest developments in PTFE replacement wax technology.
“We have developed a composite wax particle, replacing PTFE with other durable materials to give equal or greater surface durability with a composite wax particle,” he said. “Aluminum oxide nano-powders are particularly good for scratch resistance, while ceramic nano-powders are particularly good for abrasion resistance. It is much easier to add high-performance nanoparticles into all types of coatings.”
Ken Williams, senior operations manager for Sun Chemical, concluded the Technology session with “QA/QC Principles/Best Practices for Ink Manufacturing,” an impressive talk on quality control and testing equipment.
After lunch, the conference headed into the Regulatory session David Fischer, counsel with Keller and Heckman, began the session with his talk on “Reconsidering Risk Evaluation of Existing Chemicals.” Much of Fischer’s focus was on the unreasonable risk standard in the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).
“Unreasonable risk, the key standard in TSCA, is neither defined in TSCA nor any of the TSCA regulations,” Fischer said. “There are a number of factors the EPA ‘will consider’, including population exposed and severity of the hazard.”
Fischer said his concern is that the EPA is looking at a binary approach – the substance either passes all risk evaluations or it fails.
“If the EPA moves to a binary determination of unreasonable risk, it will be highly unlikely that a chemical undergoing risk evaluation will be determined not to present unreasonable risk,” he concluded. ‘So, if there is only one out of 10 conditions of use that presents an unreasonable risk, then under a binary approach it would fail – this is a huge issue. The EPA could define unreasonable risk as risk.”
Jennifer Heathcote, business development manager at GEW, Inc., focused on “Developments in UV LED Technology.” Heathcote noted that there are three types of UV curing technology – mercury arc, excimer and LED – and they are very different from each other.
“The first is mercury arc,” she said. “Excimer uses a quartz tube, and has no mercury, while LED consists of solid state semiconductors, and each works very differently.
“UV LED adoption is dramatically different by market, application and geography,” Heathcote added. “We are in the optimization stage - we have proof of concept. Label converting and sheetfed offset are strong market segments.”
Heathcote noted that there is no legislation against mercury, but sees LED as the future. “There has to be a progression toward LED,” Heathcote concluded.
David Wawer, executive director, Color Pigments Manufacturers Association (CPMA), concluded the Regulatory session with “USEPA Chemicals Risk Evaluations 2021 and Beyond.” The EPA is becoming more active in questioning industries, and the printing ink industry will likely be asked questions as well.
“Printing ink manufacturers will be asked if they can provide toxicological data studies, how many pounds/tons they purchase annually, if they can identify how many customers and the types of customers they sell to, and describe engineering controls and PPE,” Wawer said.
Wawer said that in addition to PV29, pigments will be further scrutinized. “Work plan chemicals include Yellow 83, Yellow 65 or Red 52.1, and all color pigments in commerce (organic and inorganic). One issue is measuring particle size of relevant pigment in workplace air. Carbon black will be the analog for particle size distribution for PV29 and could become the default.”
Wawer said that it is critical to know how to respond to the EPA.
“You have to have early engagement with customers, suppliers and processors in the whole value chain,” he said. “It is important to educate the EPA risk evaluation team to ensure understanding of specialty chemical batch processing. For example, the one US PV29 producer gave a tour of their plant to EPA staff.”
The Technical Conference then held the Annual Reception & Awards Dinner. In addition to the IGM Resins talk that earned first place honors in the 2021 Lawter Lecture Series, Ethanany Gehan and Dave Seline of Lubrizol captured second-place honors for “Meeting the Demand for PTFE Alternatives in Packaging Inks,” and John Setchell, who is retired after a long career in graphic arts, earned third place for “The Halftone Model.”
Next, Ford presented the Technical Acievement Award, NAPIM’s highest scientific honor, to Joe Schlinkert of Flint Group. Schlinkert began his career in Borden Chemical’s ink division in 1980, eventually becoming part of the ownership group of Color Resolution International (CRI) when it spun out of Borden. He joined American Inks and Coatings (AIC) after it acquired CRI, and then Flint Group after it purchased AIC.
“He has taught me so much, “ Ford said.
“I’ve been around the industry a long time,” Schlinkert said. “My career has been an adventure. I made a lot of friends and worked with a lot of talented people.”
New Technologies and Printed Electronics
The Oct. 14 session looked at New Technologies. Greg Adams, industrial engineer, INX International Ink Co., opened the session with “Analog to Digital for Ink Manufacturers.” Adams began by discussing three case studies that show the advantages of digital printing, beginning with billboards.
Adams noted that in the early 1990s, billboards were still painted. “This takes a lot of time, and we needed a better solution,” Adams said. “We started screen printing billboards in 12 tiles, but that also isn’t a great solution. Digital printing was introduced in the late 1990s. By 2005, billboards were fully digitally printed.”
T-shirt printing has yet to go completely digital, but inkjet is growing in use.
“Screen making is very laborious,” Adams noted. “This industry has a long way to go, with the main reason being cost. In 2006, the first digital t-shirt demonstrated and we aren’t there yet. As time goes on, scale is increasing and cost is decreasing. Consumables – a cartridge is $200 and you can maybe get 50 t-shirts. Inkjet printing on cylindrical object has change so much in the last five years. This is a game-changer, being driven by the craft brew industry.”
Jonathan Fury, director of printed electronics materials for Brewer Science, then discussed “Challenges and Opportunities for Printed Electronics.” He focused on the area of printed sensors.
“Our core business is semiconductors,” Fury said. “In 2005, we started working on carbon nanotube inks, which we could disperse into inkjet inks, but it is small volume. Then we looked into printing devices, and from this came sensors, such as water sensors. Our sensor systems deliver actionable data to our customers in real time.”
Fury noted that Brewer Science makes a wide range of sensors, from resistive temperature detectors which can be used for lithium ion battery monitoring among other applications; printed piezoresistive sensors which measure pressure, strain and flexibility; printed nitrate sensors for water; and printed heavy metal sensor, which have screenprinted carbon inks and a screenprinted ion exchange layer – used for testing drinking water.
“We can target several different analytes – lead, arsenic, zinc, calcium phenols and glucose,” added Fury. “Well water monitoring is sent to the cloud so we can gather real time data.”
Next up was Dr. Matt Dyson, senior technology analyst for IDTechEx, who covered “Conductive Inks for Printed Electronics - Innovations and Market Status.” Dr. Dyson reported that conductive inks are a $2.4 billion market, with a wide range of applications.
“There are many types of conductive inks and extensive opportunities in areas such as smart packaging, flexible hybrid electronics, skin patches and in-mold electronics,” he added. “Printed electronics offers flexibility, roll-to-roll manufacturing and can be additive, so there is less material waste. It is also lower cost.”
In terms of conductive ink types, flake-based silver inks are a mature technology used in applications ranging from photovoltaics, touch screen bezels, heaters, batteries, sensors, RFID tags, and more. Screenprinting is the dominant deposition approach. Nanoparticle-based inks offer improved conductivity but at higher cost.
“Are you buying ink or conductivity,” Dr. Dyson noted. “Silver nanoparticle ink has twice the conductivity and you need only half the ink.”
Another consideration is stretchable vs. thermoformable inks,. Stretchable inks can be repeatedly extended with minimum change of conductivity, while thermoformable inks are stretched once or maybe a couple of times for in-mold electronics. Particle-free inks provide very thin printed traces and very smooth coatings and can permeate fabrics. Copper inks are a cheaper alternative, but much harder to use as it oxidizes easily.
“There is a huge array of applications for conductive inks, spanning many sectors,” Dr. Dyson concluded. “Over the next 10 years, UHF RFID for smart packaging and in-mold electronics are predicted to show the most growth. Screenprinting is the most common printing method but digital methods are gradually gaining market share. We also expect consolidation in the nanoparticle and particle-free ink markets.”
I concluded the conference with “Printed Electronics: Mounting Applications and Technology Breakthroughs.” I offered examples of printed and flexible electronics, in markets ranging from automotive and healthcare and sensors and wearables to displays and RFID.
“A decade ago, there was a lot of hype about printed electronics that proved to be far ahead of itself,” I reported. “However, the good news is that there are new applications emerging. Today, printed electronics cover smart packaging and labels, sensors and wearables, solar cells, displays and lighting, batteries, medical devices, military equipment, and much more. Significant is the development of flexible hybrid electronics, combining traditional semiconductor-based electronics with elements of printing.”
While the 2020 Technical Conference was held virtually, it just wasn’t the same.
Thankfully, NAPIM’s three-day 2021 Annual Technical Conference, which began Oct. 12 at the Drake Hotel in Oak Brook, IL, was live, and drew a surprisingly large turnout considering the circumstances. With the theme of ‘The Ink Industry: Adaptable, Flexible, Resilient!’, more than 80 attendees heard the latest information on the economy, technology and regulatory matters, and also enjoyed the opportunity to see one another again.
John Copeland, NAPIM’s executive director, said that the feedback has been excellent.
“I think the conference has gone extremely well – we had a really great sprit during the conference, a lot of positive feelings and the conference itself had some great presentations,” Copeland said. “We had a strong keynote speaker, Dr. Michael Youngblood, and the Q&A could honestly have gone another half-hour easily. People are hungry for information on the economy.
“It was nice to see people enjoying interacting with their friends in the industry again, and I know there was a lot of business being discussed,” Copeland added. “The networking was a welcome change. This is our first live event in two years, and we believe this is a precursor to our upcoming annual convention, which starts April 8, 20922 in St. Petersburg at the Vinoy.”
Copeland thanked the sponsors, who included X-Rite and Pantone (Platinum sponsor); INX (NAPIM app sponsor); BASF and Ink World (Silver sponsors); Alvar, Central Ink and Ingevity (Break sponsors); and BYK, Central Ink, Ink World, NAPIM, Resolute Oil, Shamrock Technologies and Wise Technical Manufacturing (Golf sponsors).
“I think this year’s conference has been well received by all of the attendees,” added George Fuchs, director, regulatory affairs and technology at NAPIM. “It was good to see everyone. The opening session with the presentation on the current state of the economy was very interesting and the Regulatory featured a lot of hot topics.”
James Ford, technical director of Flint Group and NAPIM technical conference chair, noted that the conference went well considering the situation with the pandemic. “It’s nice to finally get to see people and get together,” Ford said. “We already have some plans in place to expand next year.”
The conference began on the morning of Tuesday, Oct. 12 with three 75-minute short courses as well as a Golf Outing. The courses are Printing Ink 101: Raw Materials Selection & Formulation, led by Toyo Ink's Doug Anderson; Printing Ink 101: Manufacturing - Milling/Grinding Operations, which will be led by Colorcon No-Tox’s Jerry Napiecek; and Printing Ink 101: Testing/Technical Support, taught by James Ford, technical director of Flint Group, and Russ Szadowski, director analytical R&D at INX International Ink Co.
After lunch, the Technical Conference featured the Opening Keynote presentation, “The U.S. Economy Challenge: Looking Back and Forward,” which was given by Dr. Michael Youngblood, professor of economics at Rock Valley College.
Dr. Youngblood gave a comprehensive look at the state of the US economy. Noting that the “big three” of economic statistics – production of goods and services, unemployment and inflation, he added that the recession of 2020 was unique.
“The recession of 2020 resulted from the ‘Perfect Storm,’” he noted. “On the demand side, lockdowns created mass unemployment and lower incomes. On the supply side, some businesses closed due to COVID outbreaks, such as meat packing. There were also supply chain disruptions, such as shortage of parts for autos and appliances, as well as government policies that impacted the economy.”
He noted that consumers were shutting down the economy before the government did, such as not going out to restaurants. All told, there was $2 trillion of lost output in the second quarter of 2020.
Unemployment numbers show a story. Before the pandemic, in February 2020, 158.7 million Americans were employed. In April 2020, 133.4 million were employed, with a 14.8% unemployment rate (now it is 4.8%).
“Workers are quitting jobs at a record rate,” Dr. Youngblood pointed out. “In July 2021, 2.7% of jobs were quit. Some is due to burnout, others don’t want to return to offices. Right now, there are 11 million job openings, which leads to increased costs of employing workers.”
Next up was Camila Boroni, technical service specialist for IGM Resins, who gave the Lawter Lecture Winner, the top technical paper. Her talk, which was written by a team led by Elena Billotti, covered “Photoinitator Blends for Enhanced Cure Speed at LED 395nm Wavelengths.”
Boroni noted that phosphine oxides are a class of key photoiniators when dealing with UV-A spectrum.
“They are well appreciated in opaque white ink formulations because they are able to absorb UV light where TIO2 is transparent to UV,” she said. “Recently, TPO, the industrial father of phosphine oxide class, was reclassified as reprotoxic class 1B, and this is worrying the market. TPO-L could be a replacement but its reactivity vs TPO is two to three times slower.
“We tried some PI blends with BAPO, and got some unexpected results when working with LED 395nm,” Boroni observed. “The curing was highly effective when some photoinitiators that are not absorbing at 395nm were combined with BAPO. We found that amines allow an average of 50% more reactivity vs Omnirad TPO. By adding half of BAPO, it reduces the yellowing.”
Sjaak Griffioen, director, innovation, strategy and sustainability for Covestro Coating Resins, gave a talk on “Sustainability.” He noted that in today’s value chain, 91% of materials are non-circular in nature.
“That is a number that is going to change,” said Griffioen. “Meanwhile, 80% of companies are focusing on environmental impact of design. Our options are having an active program on reducing energy consumption and generating energy from renewable resources, reducing dependency on fossil-based raw materials by circularity by design, and using renewable raw materials."
The Technical Conference then offered the Suppliers Showcase, featuring talks by Dhara Metla, graphic arts manager of BYK, and Dr. Kai Yang of Evonik, followed by a reception with tabletop exhibits.
Technology and Regulatory Matters
The second day offered two sessions; the morning featured technology talks, while the afternoon examined regulatory matters. The morning session opened with “Digital Color Standards – Specification to Ink Formulation to Quality Control,” presented by Mark Gundlach, solution architect with X-Rite Incorporated.
Gundlach observed that errors occur due to adjustments from different samples, adding that color variability concerns brand owners.
“Pantone is the language of color in graphic arts,” Gundlach said. “Spectral color specifications using Pantone enables expectations to be managed without ambiguity. You want to work with digital standards with spectral data, being able to build and share palettes in the cloud through PantoneLIVE.”
Walter Chmura, VP of Koenig & Bauer, covered “Offset Presses – Technology Update,” and noted that packaging presses have fared well during the pandemic.
The topic of microplstics and the potential regulation of PTFE were among the topics covered by Micro Powders VP Rich Czarnecki in his talk, “Novel Innovations in Wax Additive Technology.”
“Industry threats include the ECHA Annex XV microplastics proposal and PFOA/PFAS regulation proliferation, and the future for PTFE is kind of pessimistic, I’d say,” Czarnecki observed. “The inkies are leading the charge for the growing desire for higher natural content and non-petroleum derived materials.
Czarnecki then looked at the latest developments in PTFE replacement wax technology.
“We have developed a composite wax particle, replacing PTFE with other durable materials to give equal or greater surface durability with a composite wax particle,” he said. “Aluminum oxide nano-powders are particularly good for scratch resistance, while ceramic nano-powders are particularly good for abrasion resistance. It is much easier to add high-performance nanoparticles into all types of coatings.”
Ken Williams, senior operations manager for Sun Chemical, concluded the Technology session with “QA/QC Principles/Best Practices for Ink Manufacturing,” an impressive talk on quality control and testing equipment.
After lunch, the conference headed into the Regulatory session David Fischer, counsel with Keller and Heckman, began the session with his talk on “Reconsidering Risk Evaluation of Existing Chemicals.” Much of Fischer’s focus was on the unreasonable risk standard in the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).
“Unreasonable risk, the key standard in TSCA, is neither defined in TSCA nor any of the TSCA regulations,” Fischer said. “There are a number of factors the EPA ‘will consider’, including population exposed and severity of the hazard.”
Fischer said his concern is that the EPA is looking at a binary approach – the substance either passes all risk evaluations or it fails.
“If the EPA moves to a binary determination of unreasonable risk, it will be highly unlikely that a chemical undergoing risk evaluation will be determined not to present unreasonable risk,” he concluded. ‘So, if there is only one out of 10 conditions of use that presents an unreasonable risk, then under a binary approach it would fail – this is a huge issue. The EPA could define unreasonable risk as risk.”
Jennifer Heathcote, business development manager at GEW, Inc., focused on “Developments in UV LED Technology.” Heathcote noted that there are three types of UV curing technology – mercury arc, excimer and LED – and they are very different from each other.
“The first is mercury arc,” she said. “Excimer uses a quartz tube, and has no mercury, while LED consists of solid state semiconductors, and each works very differently.
“UV LED adoption is dramatically different by market, application and geography,” Heathcote added. “We are in the optimization stage - we have proof of concept. Label converting and sheetfed offset are strong market segments.”
Heathcote noted that there is no legislation against mercury, but sees LED as the future. “There has to be a progression toward LED,” Heathcote concluded.
David Wawer, executive director, Color Pigments Manufacturers Association (CPMA), concluded the Regulatory session with “USEPA Chemicals Risk Evaluations 2021 and Beyond.” The EPA is becoming more active in questioning industries, and the printing ink industry will likely be asked questions as well.
“Printing ink manufacturers will be asked if they can provide toxicological data studies, how many pounds/tons they purchase annually, if they can identify how many customers and the types of customers they sell to, and describe engineering controls and PPE,” Wawer said.
Wawer said that in addition to PV29, pigments will be further scrutinized. “Work plan chemicals include Yellow 83, Yellow 65 or Red 52.1, and all color pigments in commerce (organic and inorganic). One issue is measuring particle size of relevant pigment in workplace air. Carbon black will be the analog for particle size distribution for PV29 and could become the default.”
Wawer said that it is critical to know how to respond to the EPA.
“You have to have early engagement with customers, suppliers and processors in the whole value chain,” he said. “It is important to educate the EPA risk evaluation team to ensure understanding of specialty chemical batch processing. For example, the one US PV29 producer gave a tour of their plant to EPA staff.”
The Technical Conference then held the Annual Reception & Awards Dinner. In addition to the IGM Resins talk that earned first place honors in the 2021 Lawter Lecture Series, Ethanany Gehan and Dave Seline of Lubrizol captured second-place honors for “Meeting the Demand for PTFE Alternatives in Packaging Inks,” and John Setchell, who is retired after a long career in graphic arts, earned third place for “The Halftone Model.”
Next, Ford presented the Technical Acievement Award, NAPIM’s highest scientific honor, to Joe Schlinkert of Flint Group. Schlinkert began his career in Borden Chemical’s ink division in 1980, eventually becoming part of the ownership group of Color Resolution International (CRI) when it spun out of Borden. He joined American Inks and Coatings (AIC) after it acquired CRI, and then Flint Group after it purchased AIC.
“He has taught me so much, “ Ford said.
“I’ve been around the industry a long time,” Schlinkert said. “My career has been an adventure. I made a lot of friends and worked with a lot of talented people.”
New Technologies and Printed Electronics
The Oct. 14 session looked at New Technologies. Greg Adams, industrial engineer, INX International Ink Co., opened the session with “Analog to Digital for Ink Manufacturers.” Adams began by discussing three case studies that show the advantages of digital printing, beginning with billboards.
Adams noted that in the early 1990s, billboards were still painted. “This takes a lot of time, and we needed a better solution,” Adams said. “We started screen printing billboards in 12 tiles, but that also isn’t a great solution. Digital printing was introduced in the late 1990s. By 2005, billboards were fully digitally printed.”
T-shirt printing has yet to go completely digital, but inkjet is growing in use.
“Screen making is very laborious,” Adams noted. “This industry has a long way to go, with the main reason being cost. In 2006, the first digital t-shirt demonstrated and we aren’t there yet. As time goes on, scale is increasing and cost is decreasing. Consumables – a cartridge is $200 and you can maybe get 50 t-shirts. Inkjet printing on cylindrical object has change so much in the last five years. This is a game-changer, being driven by the craft brew industry.”
Jonathan Fury, director of printed electronics materials for Brewer Science, then discussed “Challenges and Opportunities for Printed Electronics.” He focused on the area of printed sensors.
“Our core business is semiconductors,” Fury said. “In 2005, we started working on carbon nanotube inks, which we could disperse into inkjet inks, but it is small volume. Then we looked into printing devices, and from this came sensors, such as water sensors. Our sensor systems deliver actionable data to our customers in real time.”
Fury noted that Brewer Science makes a wide range of sensors, from resistive temperature detectors which can be used for lithium ion battery monitoring among other applications; printed piezoresistive sensors which measure pressure, strain and flexibility; printed nitrate sensors for water; and printed heavy metal sensor, which have screenprinted carbon inks and a screenprinted ion exchange layer – used for testing drinking water.
“We can target several different analytes – lead, arsenic, zinc, calcium phenols and glucose,” added Fury. “Well water monitoring is sent to the cloud so we can gather real time data.”
Next up was Dr. Matt Dyson, senior technology analyst for IDTechEx, who covered “Conductive Inks for Printed Electronics - Innovations and Market Status.” Dr. Dyson reported that conductive inks are a $2.4 billion market, with a wide range of applications.
“There are many types of conductive inks and extensive opportunities in areas such as smart packaging, flexible hybrid electronics, skin patches and in-mold electronics,” he added. “Printed electronics offers flexibility, roll-to-roll manufacturing and can be additive, so there is less material waste. It is also lower cost.”
In terms of conductive ink types, flake-based silver inks are a mature technology used in applications ranging from photovoltaics, touch screen bezels, heaters, batteries, sensors, RFID tags, and more. Screenprinting is the dominant deposition approach. Nanoparticle-based inks offer improved conductivity but at higher cost.
“Are you buying ink or conductivity,” Dr. Dyson noted. “Silver nanoparticle ink has twice the conductivity and you need only half the ink.”
Another consideration is stretchable vs. thermoformable inks,. Stretchable inks can be repeatedly extended with minimum change of conductivity, while thermoformable inks are stretched once or maybe a couple of times for in-mold electronics. Particle-free inks provide very thin printed traces and very smooth coatings and can permeate fabrics. Copper inks are a cheaper alternative, but much harder to use as it oxidizes easily.
“There is a huge array of applications for conductive inks, spanning many sectors,” Dr. Dyson concluded. “Over the next 10 years, UHF RFID for smart packaging and in-mold electronics are predicted to show the most growth. Screenprinting is the most common printing method but digital methods are gradually gaining market share. We also expect consolidation in the nanoparticle and particle-free ink markets.”
I concluded the conference with “Printed Electronics: Mounting Applications and Technology Breakthroughs.” I offered examples of printed and flexible electronics, in markets ranging from automotive and healthcare and sensors and wearables to displays and RFID.
“A decade ago, there was a lot of hype about printed electronics that proved to be far ahead of itself,” I reported. “However, the good news is that there are new applications emerging. Today, printed electronics cover smart packaging and labels, sensors and wearables, solar cells, displays and lighting, batteries, medical devices, military equipment, and much more. Significant is the development of flexible hybrid electronics, combining traditional semiconductor-based electronics with elements of printing.”