Industrial Inkjet Applications
Examples of industrial inkjet ink applications include marking and labeling electronics, parts, equipment, and more that are made of metal, glass, or plastic materials. Inks formulated for such industrial applications require a higher degree of durability than those used for printing since they often convey important information pertaining to safety, instructions, or branding. These inks must have excellent abrasion resistance, withstand exposure to various environmental conditions, and convey high detail. Mitsubishi developed Elvacite® resins for inkjet inks to ensure formulators can produce inks that encompass these features such that they meet or exceed customer expectations.
Elvacite® Resins
Mitsubishi Chemical Group’s
Elvacite® acrylic resins, manufactured in Pasadena, Texas, are widely used as binders in coating, ink, and adhesive applications. Elvacite® provides formulators with better performance and functionality for their specific applications through a vast portfolio of options that spans various molecular weights, glass transition temperatures (Tg), functional group chemistries, and more.
Why Is Elvacite® Ideal for Inkjet Inks?
Elvacite® resins perform well as binders and cobinders in inkjet inks because they provide a solution to adhesion issues of inks to various substrates, imbue outstanding protection to the ink, facilitate good pigment dispersion in ink solutions, and enable good workability and application of the ink. These points are explored in depth below.
Improved Adhesion to Substrates
It is relatively more difficult to achieve adhesion of inkjet inks for industrial applications than commercial printing applications because of the metal and low–surface energy plastic materials used. Typically, primers or adhesion-promoting additives are required to introduce favorable interactions between ink-binder functional groups and these materials. Elvacite® binders inherently provide excellent adhesion to materials such as glass, metal, and plastic. In some cases, Elvacite® even eliminates the need for primers or adhesion promoters by providing 5B adhesion ratings, which indicate excellent performance and no adhesion failure on ASTM 3359 tests. The following images depict such results on various industrial substrates.
Elvacite® 4349’s Adhesion to Metal Surfaces (ASTM D3359)