Tiger Coatings and BHS Corrugated have confirmed a technical cooperation to develop a water based drop-on-demand inkjet ink for high speed applications on containerboard substrates. In 2012, Tiger Coatings and BHS Corrugated established contact at a point in time when reliable partners had to be found to start comprehensive and joint development on both sides. Launching the project was the essential kickoff point for transforming a basic inkjet research activity into live product development.
Thanks to its innovative track record, Tiger quickly presented its first ink generations for food packaging applications, customised for containerboard substrates which was not available a few years ago. The successful creation of fully digital water based overprint varnish soon afterwards underlined again the innovative character of the cooperation. Depending on the job, the digital varnish is able to provide gloss precisely where it is require and can also be applied only on areas where it is needed without any tooling or preparation. This process also provides another benefit of print protection.
All inks are tailored for print directly onto common liners, including the complete range of coated and uncoated grades, including existing digital liners. Furthermore, the print quality can be boosted on demand with an inline primer coating provided by a further network partner of BHS Corrugated, especially on uncoated liners.
The partnership between BHS Corrugated and Screen GP has enabled the adaptation of inks which allows for printing speeds up to 300m per min. The performance at this speed is already proven on the technology demonstrator at Screen GP in Cambridge. The roll to sheet in real time (RSR®) process enables digital printing during the corrugated board manufacturing process. The prototype from BHS Corrugated will startup in-house testing at BHS Corrugated in 2018 will run with the inks from Tiger Coatings.
