The Gecko Platinum colour series developed by hubergroup Deutschland GmbH, Celle, confirms all the expectations that were placed in it when it was launched on the market. Customers have since tested the colour extensively and will now use it in practice. One area of application is packaging for the pet food market.
„Highest print quality even in the fine screen range, high production speed, easy handling paired with high bonding values for versatile film laminates in demanding applications such as sterilisation - this combination was previously almost impossible to achieve in flexographic printing and largely reserved for gravure printing. A new colour series from hubergroup is now closing this gap.“ These were the words of a company statement summarising the properties of the new ink series.
Packaging printers are now focussing on precisely these properties with Pet food packaging. With the support of hubergroup Technical Services, conventionally printed products were printed with Gecko Platinum for comparison. As a result, the customer is offered significant added value in terms of compound values and print quality.
Special challenges
The substrate used for this packaging is a PET corona-pretreated film that is laminated against a metallised film. This bond with a metallised PET film is always a particular challenge for conventional ink systems. The use of Gecko Platinum offers printers a further advantage, as this ink can also be used without any problems for Wet food packaging can be used. Wet food in this type of film packaging is sterilised directly in the packaging. This also requires very high resistance, e.g. in terms of the bonding values of the colour. These are the prerequisite for the printed packaging to remain stable despite the high temperatures. A conventional flexographic printing ink based on nitrocellulose (NC), as the hubergroup has in its portfolio with Gecko Bond Star, would not fulfil this requirement. This is because the NC binder only has limited stability at high temperatures, which can lead to delamination.
Special advantages
Gecko Platinum is based on the binder polyurethane (PU), which can withstand the high temperatures of up to 131 °C and the pressure in the autoclave. Another advantage is that Gecko Platinum is compatible with other ink series. If a customer prints jobs for sterilisation applications on a machine and then, for example, labels for plastic-packed drinks, completely different ink systems were used in the past. This approach required a great deal of cleaning work, as they were not compatible with each other. This is much easier with Gecko Platinum, as it is compatible with other ink series such as Gecko Bond Star or Gecko Frontal Uni compatible is.
For this reason, following initial orders with corresponding testing of all important parameters, further designs in this packaging range are now also being converted to the new colour series.
[infotext icon]Advantages in practice- Instead of gravure printing, corresponding print jobs can now also be carried out using flexographic printing.
- The cleaning effort is considerably lower.
- A very fine 70 screen can be printed without any problems, giving the packaging a very high-quality appearance.
- The different packs in a food range have the same high-quality appearance, as both dry and wet food packs can be printed.
