Adhesion and color brilliance for UV digital printing on plastics and glass

Ideal conditions for UV digital printing on elastomers

UV digital printing offers many advantages which make it an increasingly popular option in industrial printing processes. These include its process speed and ability to handle both high and low-volume production runs and personalized custom prints (see video) quickly and affordably.

Openair-Plasma^® creates the ideal conditions for UV digital printing entirely without the need for additional adhesion promoters – even with water-based inks. Complete wettability of the printing surface is essential for the effective adhesion of solvent-free inks. Openair-Plasma^® achieves this level of wettability through the highly effective microfine cleaning and activation of the surface to ensure long-time stable print adhesion.

Plasma activation increases the surface energy of the substrate by making elastomers such as soft PVC and PUR, thermoplastics such as PC, PE and PP and other non-polar plastics polar. Homogenous surface wettability is of paramount importance for printing processes such as UV inkjet digital printing, where the end result is largely determined by the way in which ink droplets strike the substrate and spread.

The resulting print adhesion is considerably enhanced compared with untreated substrates. The imprint is significantly more wear- and moisture-resistant. The printed image itself has an impressive level of sharpness and color brilliance.