Green is in! – Environment friendly high quality inks for printing

Nowadays, everybody is looking for environment friendly solutions and printing industry is no different…it also needs to turn Green. The use of environment friendly inks is being promoted by the industry to make printWorld greener and healthier.

Eco-solvent inks are gaining popularity and its use is being promoted by the Indian print service providers. Seeing the demand in Indian market, Blackjet, Hong Kong recently launched environment-friendly high quality ‘Titan INX’, in India. These inks have pleasant smell and do not contain VOCs like ‘Cyclohexanon’ thereby helping the environment and health of operators during the process of digital printing. These inks come with ROHS – 6 “The restriction of the use of certain hazardous substance” compliance certificate, which does not allow more than agreed levels of Lead, Cadmium, Mercury, Chromium, PBB & PBDE and other hazardous chemicals, etc.

So far aggressive solvent inks have been very popular in the wide-format printing industry in India. But, these inks comprise of harmful VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) that require very diligent handling. Though these solvent inks offer benefit in price, the negative effect on human health, environmental impact and damage caused to the printheads do not justify their usage in the long run. These inks may contain chemicals like Cyclohexanone, MEK, etc. that cause health and safety concerns and need extensive ventilation system and special handling procedure during shipping, using and disposing.

On the other hand, eco-solvent inks by definition do not emit harmful levels of VOCs during normal digital printing operations. They are generally safe to use in a small business environments when handled according to EPA and OSHA guidelines. These inks provide high print quality, long lasting durability and support for uncoated media.