Introduction to industrial inkjet printing — IMI Europe

06 Feb.,2023

 

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Inkjet technology

Inkjet technology has become a household word through its presence on the consumer desktop as a low cost, reliable, relatively quick and convenient method of printing digital files. Although inkjet technology has been around since the 1950s in speciality printing, the impact of the technology in a wide range of industrial applications is only now becoming clear.

Simple in theory. Complex in practice

In theory, inkjet technology is simple - a printhead ejects a pattern of tiny drops of ink onto a substrate without actually touching it. Dots using different coloured inks are combined together to create photo-quality images.

In practice however, successful implementation of the technology is very complex. The ejected dots are smaller than the diameter of a human hair (70 microns), and they need to be positioned very precisely to achieve resolutions as fine as 1440x1440 dots per inch (dpi). This precision requires multi-disciplinary skills; a combination of careful design, implementation and operation across physics, fluid mechanics, chemistry and engineering.

Industrial inkjet printing

Inkjet technology is increasingly viewed as more than just a printing or marking technique. It can also be used to apply coatings, to deposit precise amounts of functional materials, and even to build micro- or macro-structures. The potential benefits of using inkjet technology are significant and include the reduction of manufacturing costs, provision of higher quality output, conversion of processes from analogue to digital, reduction in inventory, printing onto very large, very small, fragile or non-flat substrates, reduction of waste, mass customisation, faster prototyping and the implementation of just-in-time manufacture.

Industrial inkjet printing essentially means using inkjet technology to print or deposit materials as part of the manufacturing process of a product on a production line. The principle remains similar to the inkjet printer on your desktop but the scale is very different in terms of machine size and speed, and also in the variety of fluids that need to be deposited. The introduction of industrial inkjet technology into manufacturing environments has the potential to make a revolutionary step-change to existing capabilities with huge commercial benefits. While all inkjet technologies can fundamentally be described as the digitally controlled ejection of drops of fluid from a printhead onto a substrate, this is accomplished in a variety of ways.

Inkjet technology for industrial printing

Industrial inkjet printing systems, and the industrial inkjet printheads they are based on, are broadly classified as either continuous (CIJ) or drop on demand (DOD), with variants within each classification. As the name implies, continuous inkjet technology ejects drops continuously from the printhead. These drops are then either directed to the substrate as printing drops or to a collector for recirculation and re-use. Drop on demand technology ejects drops from the printhead only when required.

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