Abstract:
A method for continuous production of radiation curable ink suitable for ink-based digital printing includes feeding ingredients suitable for forming a pigment concentrate to an extruder; blending the ingredients in the extruder to form a pigment concentrate paste; feeding additional ingredients to the extruder for blending with the ink concentrate to form an ink product configured for ink-based digital printing, wherein a pigment particle size is less than about 1 micron.
Abstract:
A system and method are provided for producing variable pearlescent image elements or portions on image receiving media substrates using a variable digital data offset lithographic architecture which provides for varying lithographic images between cycles of a marking device. Pearlescent inks are provided with a solid particle pearlescent pigment components in a proportion of at least 10% by weight suspended in solution in an ink composition. Pearlescent inks are provided with a solid particle pearlescent pigment components having particle sizes in excess of ten microns suspended in solution in the ink composition. The disclosed systems and methods provide for variable pearlescent image elements or portions to be formed on an image receiving medium substrate separate from, or in combination with, other ink image elements or portions applied using other inks in a single device, and/or in a single pass of the image receiving media substrates through an image forming system.
Abstract:
The disclosed systems and methods provide an ink-based digital printing system for printing high quality images on a wide latitude of image receiving media. The disclosed systems and methods employ a UV curable base (transfix) layer deposited on an intermediate image transfer member that is then at least partially cured prior to an aqueous ink being deposited on the base layer to form a digital image thereon. Once the images are formed on the base layer, a drying device is optionally used to reduce a water content of the aqueous ink images on the base layer prior to transfer of the images to an image receiving media substrate. At transfer, the images and at least a portion of the base layer are transferred to the image receiving media substrate, the images being sandwiched between the portion of the base layer and the image receiving media substrate.