The new production facility, located at Agfa’s headquarters in Mortsel, Belgium, will enable Agfa to serve its current customers, as well as to be a key supplier of aqueous inkjet inks for a wide range of novel applications.
Its first target is the growing market of printing on décor paper for the production of laminate floorings and furniture panels, where inkjet printing with Agfa’s water-based inks delivers a very cost-effective solution. The second target is the promising market of inkjet printing on packaging, especially on corrugated carton, delivering the most sustainable solution in terms of the material, as well as the printing process and ink.
In combination with Agfa’s existing facilities, the new plant will form a flexible and extremely efficient production centre, where R&D and Quality Control teams will be co-located. Its manufacturing capacity should cover the expected growth rates of ink volumes for the next five to ten years.
‘Agfa is a specialist producer of inkjet inks and fluids of renowned quality and performance. The inkjet ink business is one of our growth pillars,’ said Tom Cloots, Director Industrial Inkjet. ‘In the last two decades, we built an inkjet ink production platform that covers pilot to full-scale ink production, and incorporates pigment dispersion production, extensive quality control and ink consistency programmes. Our ink sales volumes have steadily grown year after year and we have gradually increased production capacity. The time has come for a new investment to keep up with growing market demands.’
In addition, Agfa develops and manufactures UV ink sets in close collaboration with a high number of OEMs of multi-pass and single pass printing solutions. These inks deliver high print quality and day-to-day reliable print results, but they also stand out through their wide colour gamut, jetting reliability, shelf life and batch-to-batch consistency.
For many years, Agfa has also been active in the field of aqueous inkjet inks, which are based on specific pigment dispersion and ink technology. OEMs incorporate these ink sets in their inkjet printing systems for diverse applications, including laminate (flooring and furniture, printing on décor paper), corrugated carton and document printing, as well as for ongoing developments, especially packaging applications. The ink sets are tuned to the print system as well as to particular application needs. The primary focus lies on printer uptime and the highest consistency of print results.
To submit your news please, contact journo@practicalpublishing.co.za
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AGFA GRAPHICS
(+27 11) 921 4684
dave.reynolds@agfa.com
http://www.agfa.com
