Product Watch: Artience’s Aquasol act as water based gravure and flexo inks

These inks are often used as a lamination ink to package snacks at a high temperature. Barua states that it is relatively easy to shift to water based inks: “The most important thing is the drying process. If the cylindrical cell depth is lowered with the assistance of the machine oven and exhaust fan, the process should almost be seamless.”

Aquasol uses general pigments having ARSR properties of its original resin system. In comparison to solvent bases, its pigmentation is higher by 1.2 to 1.8 depending on the colour. The curing process is the same as the solvent base process, while it also prints at the same speed as the solvent base as long as the settings are in optimum condition.

Aquasol offers printability, high color density and bonding strength on various kinds of substrates such as BOPP, CC-PET, CT-PET and nylon among others. For press maintenance, it requires ink viscosity and pH, cylinder depth, shelf life management and cleaning to avoid the contamination of solvent based inks. 

Aquasol was launched in Japan in 1990 and in India in 2021. Artience’s water based inks provide features and functionalities while complying with strict chemical regulations and guidelines such as Swiss ordinance and European Printing Inks Association.

The Artience Group is working to boost its sales ratio of sustainable products by to 8-% and increase the number of products capable of reducing CO2 emissions. As a member of the Group, Toyo Ink India is continually developing packaging solutions with improved sustainability and recyclability.