How to choose printing ink for pharmaceutical packaging printing materials

Pharmaceutical foil printing and blister packaging emerged in Europe in the 1930s. The application of aluminum foil as printing material in China in the 1970s mainly relied on imports. In the 1980s, Japan has introduced Japan's pharmaceutical aluminum foil printing and coating equipment from Guangzhou, Lianyungang, and Jinzhou, but major printing materials still need to be imported. In the 1990s, China could not only manufacture single-color medical aluminum foil printing and coating equipment, but also manufacture or print colored, gold-colored pharmaceutical packaging aluminum foil products. The printing materials provided by pharmaceutical packaging companies can meet the needs of the domestic printing industry with the use of inks and adhesives for aluminum foil and aluminum foil. In the coming period, China will greatly increase the quality of pharmaceutical aluminum foil blister packaging to meet the needs of the pharmaceutical market. Therefore, pharmaceutical aluminum foil printing materials for pharmaceutical printing and packaging materials, pharmaceutical aluminum foil printing inks, and adhesives for auxiliary materials, and pharmaceutical polyvinyl chloride materials are currently the pharmaceutical packaging materials with good development prospects in the printing of flexible packaging products. Based on the present situation of the use of aluminum foils, printing inks, adhesives and PVC in China, the development trend of pharmaceutical printing blister packaging materials in the future will be discussed.

At present, there are many kinds of printing inks in the market, and the brands are different. However, considering the special requirements for the printing process of pharmaceutical aluminum foils and pharmaceutical packaging, the printing inks must have good adhesion to aluminum foils, a firm and clear printed text pattern, and solvents. Fast release, good heat resistance, good abrasion resistance, good gloss, non-toxic pigments, no contamination of packaged drugs due to migration of chemical components contained in the ink, and practical viscosity should be in accordance with the process requirements of aluminum foil printing. From the requirements of several aspects to analyze, currently used in aluminum foil printing inks are mainly divided into two categories:

The first category is alcohol-soluble polyamide inks. Because the polyamide resin has good adhesion to the type of printing materials, especially suitable for printing polyolefin film, with good dispersion, good gloss, softness, good abrasion resistance, solvent release and printing performance, so The most used is the gravure printing ink used for printing on the surface of films treated with LDPE, CPP, and OPP. Because this kind of ink is widely used, anti-blocking, and easy to dry, it is also used for surface printing of medicinal aluminum foil. When this type of ink is printed on aluminum foil, various excellent properties can be surfaced, and the heat resistance can also meet the requirements during the printing and use of aluminum foil. It is currently the most widely used type of medicinal aluminum foil printing. However, such inks are not special inks for aluminum foil stamping after all, and there have been problems with ink peeling when printing on a large area of ​​aluminum foil. At present, domestic ink factory can produce aluminum foil special gravure table printing polyamide ink, some users use shows that: the ink heat resistance, good adhesion, 200 °C high temperature heat test, the printed text pattern is still clear and not discoloration.

The second type of ink is an aluminum foil special ink based on vinyl chloride, vinyl acetate copolymer resin and acrylic resin. This is a newly developed gravure printing ink, which is characterized by bright color, high concentration, particularly strong adhesion to aluminum foil, good transparency, and excellent reproducibility of aluminum foil. However, due to the ink in the gravure printing, the volatility of the solvent is large. When the aluminum foil is used for printing, it is easy to cause the gravure roll ink to cause the ink dry knot to produce a paste type phenomenon, which affects the printing quality.

The above two kinds of inks are insufficient when used for printing on the surface of pharmaceutical aluminum foils. If it is to adjust the composition of the mixed solvent of the second type of aluminum foil special ink to meet the needs of aluminum foil surface printing, it will be more applied to the surface printing of aluminum foil.