The sustainability of printed products has been in the focus of our research activities for a long time. Now, we have taken a further step towards improving the environmental balance of our products: We have revised our UV ink series for sheetfed and continuous printing to make them deinkable and launched a deinkable UV web offset series. In a short interview, Roland Schröder, Product Manager UV Europe at hubergroup, gives more information on our deinkable UV series.
Why should printers use deinkable UV inks?
Roland Schröder: UV inks offer enormous advantages in the printing process due to their fast drying. However, they are often difficult to recycle because they leave visible traces in the recycled paper. When using deinkable UV inks, the printed products can be safely fed into the recycling process and function as base material for a new product. Thereby, we can altogether contribute to a circular economy.
Which of hubergroup’s UV inks are deinkable?
Roland Schröder: We have recently revised our EuPIA compliant UV ink series NewV set UEL4000, NewV pack UG5000 and NewV poly UP5000 in order to make them deinkable. In addition, the newly developed NewV news UNL4000, an LED UV ink series for web offset printing, is deinkable. All those ink series show very good deinkability on coated paper. The NewV set and NewV poly series also show good deinkability on uncoated papers.
How was the deinkability tested?
Roland Schröder: The PMV department of the Technical University of Darmstadt (Germany) evaluated our ink series using INGEDE method 11.
In which areas can those series be used?
Roland Schröder: The deinkable UV ink series from hubergroup are applicable to commercial, packaging and newspaper printing. Commercial printers can cover the entire UV commercial range with the deinkable inks, as the NewV set series can be used for iron-doped and LED curing systems, while the NewV pack and NewV poly series are suitable for mercury curing systems. With the NewV news LED UV series, newspaper printers have the opportunity to expand their range with high-quality, commercial-like products and thus better utilize their press capacities.
Why should printers choose hubergroup’s UV inks?
Roland Schröder: Our inks convince with fast curing, sharp image quality and intense, bright colours. On top, they show good deinkability and have a good environmental balance in general. Why we can be so sure of that? We produce a large part of the raw materials for these ink series in our own Chemicals Division. Thereby, we can define our own environmental standards and ensure our customers sustainability along the value chain.