Printing on Plastic Films

For recording on an ink-nonabsorbent recording medium, such as plastic films, nonaqueous ink compositions containing an organic 

Octyl mercaptan n-Dodecyl mercaptan n-Hexadecyl mercaptan w-Tetradecyl mercaptan Dimethyixanthogen disulfide Diethylxanthogen disulfide Diisopropylxanthogen disulfide 

Tetramethylthiuram disulfide Tetraethylthiuram disulfide Tetrabutylthiuram disulfide Carbon tetrachloride Ethylene bromide 

Nonaqueous ink compositions that contain an organic solvent are quick to dry and cause little bleeding or blurring. Therefore, they have been used in recording on nonabsorbing media such as plastics that do not absorb ink. 

However, from the viewpoint of global environment protection and safety, aqueous ink compositions containing water as solvent are more desirable. 

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Silk-screen printing on plastics films (E. S. Snyder)... 

Flexographic printing on substrates such as paper and board is significantly different to printing on plastic film and because of the adsorbent nature of the substrate water-based inks are normally used. However, there are still a few applications where solvents are required for paper printing. 

Menard, E. Nuzzo, R. G. Rogers, J. A. 2005. Bendable single crystal silicon thin film transistors formed by printing on plastic substrates. Appl. Phys. Lett. 86 093507. 

The printing ink industry uses P.R.146 for letterpress and offset inks and also in packaging gravure and flexo printing inks. The pigment lends itself to a variety of special applications it is used, for instance, to print bank notes and securities. A certain tendency to migrate, however, precludes its use in print on plasticized PVC films. 

The templates for the oxygen and hydrogen flow fields/electrodes in this book (see page 248) are intended to be printed on plastic transfer film and then transferred to copper circuit board for etching. This method is commonly used to transfer printed circuit board designs to the copper surface of the boards. We used Press-n-Peel , which is a plastic film that has an emulsion on one side and comes in sheets of 8V2"x 11" size. The plastic sheet is loaded into the printer just as any other 8 /2"x 11" paper would be. 

Plastic packaging films are usually used with coloured and heavily printed surfaces, applied for creation of visual attraction to the contents. The characteristics of these coloured structures and prints on the film surfaces should also he considered carefully, because there is a high possibility that their contents, which can he toxic, may migrate through the thin film structure inwards to contaminate the food. 

These are usually self-adhesive, precut, printed patterns on a substrate that are simply adhered to the surface of a product. Decals generally use a transparent plastic film while labels are usually on an opaque plastic, metallic and multilayer sandwich base. Labels of sufficient thickness are useful for hiding unavoidable appearance problems such as gate and sprue removal areas, sink marks, blushes, splays, and weld lines. 

Different demands are placed on a pigment which is targeted for covered or laminated printing. In this technique, a reverse impression is printed onto a plastic film and laminated by means of one or two component adhesives, laminating resins and wax onto another substrate such as paper, aluminum foil, or polymer foil. These substances may adversely affect pigment performance. For high gloss applications, a normal impression is covered with a clear plastic film. 

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