Abstract

The study of new material for package printing is critical because packaging is not only about visual aesthetics, but also function. Technologies such as High-chroma ink that aid expanded gamut printing can be especially useful in package printing.

The thesis experiment examined the lightfastness characteristics of High-chroma water-based flexographic printing inks sets within the context of package printing applicability. Using conventional water-based flexographic printing inks as a standard, the study examined whether High-chroma inks exhibit different lightfastness characteristics. First, the researcher chose yellow and magenta process color water-based flexographic inks because of the traditional process colors, they are the least stable in terms of lightfastness characteristics. The tested yellow and magenta each have two types of lightfastness specifications which are described as fair and excellent. The inks were produced by a K-proofer to simulate the ink’s solid and tint surfaces on package printing. Next, a Q-sun xenon test chamber was used to simulate environmental lighting conditions using a procedure described by ASTM International Standard Practice for Evaluating the Relative D3424-11 Method 3. After each time exposure duration, a spectrodensitometer was used to collect the density and colorimetric (L*a*b*) values of the standard ink set and High-chroma ink set. Lastly, the values were used to calculate ∆D and ∆E00 for analysis. The total experiment duration was 230 hours.

The results showed that there are no significant lightfastness characteristic differences between standard and High-chroma inks. The most significant difference result obtained was in the comparison of the magenta ink in fair lightfastness standard, in which the High-chroma ink exhibited better lightfastness characteristic colorimetric values than the standard ink. The results of comparing yellow and magenta inks showed that magenta had a better lightfastness characteristic densitometric and colorimetric attributes than yellow ink. Each tested ink color exhibited unique characteristics that need to be tested and examined before implementation to fit specifics package printing requirement.

Library of Congress Subject Headings

Printing ink--Testing; Flexography

Publication Date

7-2018

Document Type

Thesis

Student Type

Graduate

Degree Name

Print Media (MS)

Department, Program, or Center

School of Media Sciences (CIAS)

Advisor

Bruce L. Myers

Advisor/Committee Member

Christine Heusner

Campus

RIT – Main Campus

Plan Codes

PRNTMED-MS

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