The use of corona treating to improve adhesion on water based ink formulations is widely accepted as a best practice. However printers who use solvent inks may not realize that there is much to be gained from using a corona treater for solvent printing applications.
While solvent inks are more aggressive than their water based counterparts there is still a chemistry requirement to ensure the ink will wet out. Substrates that are to be printed on with solvent inks are normally pretreated by the film manufacturer to a level that will be receptive to ink adhesion. However time, storage conditions and additive surface migration can all reduce the substrate’s bonding ability by the time it reaches the solvent printing press.
Corona treating the substrate immediately prior to printing puts control in the hands of the solvent printer. The corona treatment process optimizes surfaces for adhesion by removing surface contaminants, creating bonding sites and raising the surface energy (usually measured in dynes.) The results are improved print quality, the elimination of pinholing, less scrap and higher productivity.
For this reason experts in the printing field such as Steve Utschig, Flexographic Printing Instructor at Fox Valley Technical College, recommend a corona treater for anyone involved in printing with either water based or solvent inks. And users in the field such as Bruce Pagel of Tufco report that their solvent printing lines with corona treaters have less delays and downtime.
Enercon offers corona treaters for non-solvent as well as a closed pressurized station rated for Class I, Division II, Group D locations.
Get a free technical paper: Corona Treating and the Solvent Printing Process.