As digital printing continues to transform the printing industry, the need to improve sustainability and reduce environmental impact continues to grow, whether it’s packaging, textiles or commercial printing.

Transitioning from analog to digital printing inherently supports sustainability efforts, with its ability to deliver short-run or variable printed products while cutting costs and reducing waste from the creation of excess stock. Reducing avoidable print waste saves money by not needing to hold as much inventory with only the exact amount of material required being used, and reduces the environmental impact of handling and recycling printed stock.

Digital printing reduces energy consumption compared to traditional methods by requiring less energy during setup and operation. This happens by eliminating plates, reducing setup times and eliminating drying stages, all of which lead to lower overall power usage.

In the case of textiles, tremendous amounts of water are used for the pre-rinsing processes, dye baths and post-dye rinsing. Most of this water is returned as effluent to local waterways filled with residual dyes, hazardous chemicals, microfibers and mordants (chemicals used to bond dyes with fabric). Digital printing is essentially waterless, whether it be textiles, packaging or another substrate. There’s no post-treatment required, which also means no dirty effluent that needs to be treated, minimizing the environmental impact associated with water treatment and disposal.

In Europe, EU regulations are driving change in the packaging industry. Some of these regulations include:

European Green Deal
Single-Use Plastics Directive
Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (Key Focus: Sets recycling and recovery targets for packaging materials)
- Hazardous Substances Restrictions
- Recyclability and Recycled Content
- Waste Reduction Measures

Eco-Friendlier Inks

Digital printing uses environmentally friendlier inks that are water-based or UV-curable. These inks produce fewer volatile organic compounds (VOCs) compared to solvent-based inks, which are typically used in traditional printing. By using these inks, digital printing helps minimize air pollution and reduces the harmful impact on human health associated with VOC emissions.

Four Challenges for Water-Based Inks

Water-based digital inks have to perform in real-world applications by providing ink stability under high-speed printing, print performance and color fastness properties in a wide range of end uses.

High-Speed Printing and Print Quality—achieving high-speed printing while maintaining excellent print quality is a delicate balance. The formulation of water-based inks needs to be optimized to ensure rapid drying and absorption by the substrate, preventing issues such as bleeding or color spread.
Durability and Colorfastness—improving the durability and colorfastness of prints is a persistent challenge. Water-based inks can face issues such as fading over time or susceptibility to environmental factors, and addressing these concerns is crucial for expanding the application range of water-based inkjet printing.
Ink Stability—maintaining the stability of water-based inks is vital to prevent nozzle clogging and ensure reliable performance during continuous printing. Factors such as sedimentation, agglomeration or changes in viscosity over time can impact the inkjet system’s efficiency.
Color Gamut and Vividness—achieving a wide color gamut and vibrant colors with water-based inks can be challenging. Innovations are needed to push the boundaries of color reproduction and ensure that water-based digital prints meet the high expectations of the industries where they’re used.

Advanced Ink Chemistry Enables Digital Printing

Water-based ink formulations rely on highly stable pigment dispersions and other advanced chemistries to help overcome these challenges and enable high-speed, uninterrupted inkjet printing. The ink has to jet well, be consistent, and provide the right level of color and fastness properties necessary for the end application.

Diamond Dispersions™ inkjet dispersions from Lubrizol are water-based, pigmented ink dispersions and disperse-dye ink dispersions that are formulated to meet the demanding requirements of the dynamic digital inks market. These low-VOC formulations reduce environmental impact while maintaining print quality—playing a crucial role in enabling ink formulators and users to successfully transition to more sustainable digital printing while meeting increasingly strict environmental regulations.

Diamond Dispersions™ High Stability Dispersion (HSD) Technology creates a dispersion that is more stable to changes in solvent polarity and enables more formulating flexibility in the ink formulation. Diamond Dispersions HSD dispersions allow for more reliable inkjet printing by eliminating jetting problems and blocked nozzles for faster print speeds and less down time.

They also enable the formulation of inks for high-speed digital printing applications, helping to bring the speeds of digital printing much closer to those of traditional analog printing presses doing large print runs. Doing so means having the ability to reliably print at speeds of at least 500 feet a minute (150 meters) to make digital printing cost effective compared to analog printing, which HSD dispersion technology enables. While speed is important, so is quality. HSD dispersion technology delivers exceptional ink stability, print performance, vivid colors and sharp details, as well as color fastness properties. Typical applications include inks for textiles, packaging, commercial print, home decor and graphic arts.

In addition to color dispersions, Lubrizol offers a wide range of specialty chemicals and solutions designed to enhance the performance, durability and sustainability of digital ink systems. Extensive experience in analog printing translates into digital printing with continuous development of products that enable high-speed, high-definition printing across a wide range of applications.

Lubrizol provides all the primary chemical components needed to synergize the full system—color dispersions, dispersants, jettable resins, binders, surface modifiers and ink receptive coatings. By understanding how the many parts interact with one another, Lubrizol can help optimize the entire print system to meet environmental and regulatory challenges while enhancing cost efficiency and competiveness.

Water-Based Color Dispersions for Digital Printing Propel the Transition to Sustainable Printing