Across the printing industry, flexo printing, or flexo printing, has established a reputation for a quality printing process that rivals letterpress, gravure and offset printing that have been used in industry for many years. Today, the entire packaging industry and other areas of the printing industry would be unthinkable without this highly economical high-quality printing process. This is mainly due to the high flexibility offered by flexo, its qualifications for various materials, the large and variable range of printing repeat lengths, the different printing widths available, and the very high production speeds. Other advantages include a high degree of variety in flexo press specifications and the possibility to use flexo in line with other printing technologies and converting operations.
Finally, recent developments and improvements in the field of printing engineering, flexo printing plates and flexo inks have contributed decisively to the status of the process today.
Today's flexo printing process has a history of more than 100 years. According to historians, very primitive aniline products were produced in the United States as early as 1860.
The original name for this letterpress printing process, flexographic printing, dates back to the mid-19th century use of aniline dyes, which were diluted in alcohol and had been used for printing for many years. This rubber printing process – rubber plates were not fully used until 1970 – was originally used to print packaging paper. It is said that earlier flexographic printing equipment was used in England and Germany in 1890. From about 1910, some European machine builders began to offer flexographic printing presses combined with paper bag machines to allow the one-off production of printed paper bags. From the early 1920s to about 1940, flexographic printing presses were low speed device and are designed to work with paper bag machines in most cases. However, it was also around this time that the first four-color roll-to-roll presses were developed and introduced to the packaging industry. In addition, printing inks were significantly improved, the first drying units were installed on presses, and there were new packaging materials such as cellophane and other non-absorbent substrates to be printed by the process.
During the 1950s, this particular letterpress printing technique became increasingly important in a variety of packaging applications. The first pigmented inks were developed, and the design, manufacture, and even mechanization of machines to some extent provided greater stability, greater precision, and faster operation.
It was also in the 1950s - again in the US - that the name "flexo printing" was coined and soon became common in global trade Flexo printing was defined as "a method of letterpress printing utilizing a rubber plate and a liquid, fast- Dry the ink."
This printing process has become a widely used technique over the past 25 years; it has been continuously improved, especially since the development and introduction of photopolymer printing plates in 1972.
Over the past 5 to 8 years - thanks above all to relatively low plate costs and good print quality, as well as a multitude of application possibilities - flexo printing has developed into an industrial printing process and is now an A serious competitor to established printing methods, offset and gravure.
Flexo printing process
Like the letterpress printing process, flexo printing uses raised printing plates of rubber or soft elastic polymers whose raised areas transfer ink to the substrate. Low-viscosity, fast-drying ink diluted with solvent or water is delivered to the printing plate or stereo by the ink fountain roller or more recently by the ink chamber-wiper assembly and the transfer roller or anilox roller, as they are also called.
The prevailing mode of operation today is roll-to-roll technology and printing in line with surface finishing machines. Where previously only bags, sacks and paper packaging materials were printed with flexo, today flexo uses include a large number of plastic packaging in the food and hygiene sectors, applications in the aluminum industry as well as tote bags, labels, wallpaper, corrugated cardboard and cartons, newspapers , handkerchiefs, magazines, envelopes, stationery and other items that need to be printed.
Thanks to its high degree of flexibility, flexo succeeds in constantly conquering new market segments and penetrating many areas previously reserved for offset or gravure printing.
