The Impact of Inkjet Printing Technology on the Ceramics Industry

The real printing era of the ceramic industry is arriving. One of the major highlights of last year's Italian ceramics exhibition was the large number of inkjet-printed products. Now, as expected, the high technology of the tile design kingdom is gradually being accepted by major tile-producing countries and is showing a trend toward popularity.

The design direction of ceramic tiles is the simulation of natural building materials (stone, wood, etc.), and the key to design lies mainly in the treatment of surface texture, feel and layers. Modern architectural ceramic design has moved from the early screen printing era to the current roller printing era. Screen printing is a flat printing process and cannot print on the concave and convex surfaces of tiles, so it is difficult to achieve diverse, three-dimensional surface effects. From this perspective, screen printing is a flat printing, or rather a rigid printing. Roller printing includes screen rollers and rubber rollers.

Compared with screen printing, roller printing is a flexible printing process, and its breakthrough lies in the ability to print on concave and convex surfaces, which makes the surface layers of tiles richer and the simulation of nature more faithful. Inkjet printing has changed the traditional contact pressure printing and achieved "mid-air" printing without contact with the tile surface. This technology not only has no obstacles in printing concave and convex surfaces (with a drop of up to 4cm) and inclined surfaces, but is also no longer limited by the repeated overprinting of local textures, so that the texture of one piece differs from another, the texture variations are richer and the simulation effect is better.

The computer-controlled "mid-air" operation of inkjet printing can achieve multi-angle, high-density glazing, fully presenting the three-dimensional surface design effect of ceramic tiles and making tile patterns as beautiful as photographs. Also related to inkjet printing technology is dry powder dry pressing technology. This technology produces green bodies with concave and convex surfaces through molds and then carries out inkjet printing.

In fact, inkjet printing technology in the field of tile production matured in Italy many years ago, but out of the need for competition, this technology was initially restricted from being exported to China, which was a competitor, and was confined to application by ceramic enterprises in Europe and other places. At present, more than 200 inkjet printing devices have been put into production in this region. At the 2009 Guangzhou Ceramics Industry Exhibition, the Italian company SERTAM exhibited its PINK series inkjet printing machines outside Europe.

It is generally believed that the reason Italians exported inkjet printing technology to China so quickly is mainly that the once-in-a-century financial crisis sharply reduced ceramic production capacity in European countries, and equipment enterprises, in order to survive and develop, had to open up advanced technology to China, a large market. Judging from the response of the Chinese market over the past year or so, East China enterprises continue to display a consistent "technology faction" lineage in this regard. Nabel adopted the Italian Kerajet digital inkjet printing system at the beginning of this year and launched its digital series products.

At the just-concluded Shanghai exhibition, people also saw the glazed polished tile and the Zhizhen Huancai product series produced by CIMIC using the German-Italian cooperative technology INK-CID digital inkjet printing system (these two products are said to have a depiction precision of up to 924dpi). and launched the Huangpin Digital series integrating roller printing and spray printing. And in Guangdong, mainstream enterprises have reacted rather coolly to inkjet printing technology; the only case known so far is Asia adopting Italian-imported NEWTECH inkjet printing machines to launch the so-called Avatar series.

Why are mainstream enterprises in Foshan relatively cautious about introducing inkjet technology? The main reason is probably still the cost issue. It should be said that the market price of the inkjet printing machine itself is not very high. For example, an inkjet printing machine in the PINK series in 48mm×48mm size sells for about 1.4 million RMB, while large-size ones cost 4-6 million. But the Sicer digital ink provided by the company costs 1 million per ton, nearly 20 times that of ordinary colorants. At present, mainstream enterprises in Guangdong are busy building and densifying sales networks in second- and third-tier markets in order to seize the opportunity of the booming urban and rural markets, rapidly expand scale and form economies of scale.

On the contrary, competition in the first-tier market has always been relatively saturated, especially as European native ceramic brands have stepped up their entry into the Chinese market in recent years, making market competition even fiercer. Therefore, for mainstream enterprises in Guangdong, the opportunity cost of "downward" development is currently lower, and very few truly set their minds on doing the market well. The rapid introduction of inkjet printing technology by East China enterprises is clearly intended to consolidate the market's traditional. As for ordinary enterprises, introducing advanced inkjet printing technology is mainly to use it as a lever to raise their originally weak brand image.

In the author's view, the opening up of advanced European inkjet printing technology to China triggered by the financial crisis is precisely, against the current broader backdrop of a low-carbon economy, a very good opportunity to drive the upgrade of China's ceramic manufacturing toward "low-carbonization." First, inkjet printing compared with screen and roller printing, the latter causes a large amount of color glaze waste because of plate changes and washing. The former, because it uses ink cartridges to hold the color glaze, is not liable to cause waste, thereby reducing pollution to a great extent;

Second, in the past, when printing equipment was imperfect, out of the need for market competition, manufacturers often had to make up for deficiencies in surface design by using the used, of raw materials, or simply simplified the design and relied on the chemical properties of the raw materials themselves and the firing process to achieve naturally integrated simulation or surreal surface effects. Now printing technology is increasingly, and enterprises should be able to simplify the use of raw materials, and through the combination of more ordinary and more environmentally friendly raw materials with the art of inkjet printing, both achieve the goal of "low carbon" and realize high added value of products.

Therefore, given the dual effects of the above industrial upgrading, we hope that more mainstream enterprises will introduce advanced European inkjet printing technology. And indeed, only when more mainstream enterprises enter this market can the industry be led to retrace the old path of ceramic machinery "introduction - digestion - absorption - creation" of those years, and thereby promote the localization of core components of inkjet printing such as inks, print heads and control systems. One can imagine that once inkjet printing technology embarks on the low-cost localization path of "Chinese style," the industry is very likely to give birth to another "Keda-style" listed company.

——This article is reprinted from China Packaging Network (pack.cn), original link: http://news.pack.cn/show-362196.html