The issue of "environmental protection" has been paid more and more attention, and all the small details in our life are worth re-examining and improving. For example, when we buy goods, there will be a carton or wrapping paper attached with the product name and introduction. And these are all printed with traditional ink, if every product and every package in the store is the same, the long-term cumulative impact on the environment is very large, and cause a lot of unnecessary damage.
Let's understand the eco-friendly soy ink through the following points.
In the late 1970s, pressured by rising oil prices, the Newspaper Association of America decided to look for alternatives to the standard petroleum-based ink. After testing more than 2,000 different vegetable oil formulations, researchers at the Press Association came up with a solution based on soybean oil.
In 1987, researchers successfully experimented with soybean ink in the printing process of the Gazette, an Iowa newspaper. Today, nearly a third of newspaper presses in the United States use soy ink.
The first soy ink was produced in 1987 by Sun Chemical's General Ink Printing Company and was first used in The Gazette, Iowa, USA.
Soy ink is an industrial printing ink made of soybean oil. Compared to traditional petroleum-based inks, soy-based inks are considered environmentally friendly and conducive to waste paper recycling, as well as having brighter colors and less ink. However, soybean ink drying needs a longer time, as one of its shortcomings.
PAH (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) contained in traditional ink components is a volatile solvent, harmful to human body; It contains VOC (volatile organic compounds), not only increase air pollution, but also cause harm to the human body. At the same time, the rising price of oil and the depletion of reserves, we need to seek a new environmentally friendly material to replace the traditional ink composition.
Soy ink or Vegetable ink raw material is Vegetable oil such as salad oil, which has excellent fluidity and coloring, high transparency, bright color, not easy to fade, cheap price and good printing effect. It meets various standard specifications of printing ink, of course, the biggest characteristic is very good environmental performance.
Soybean oil contained in soybean ink is a safe substance, replacing part of the petroleum solvent, low content of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, reduce VOC emissions when using, thus reducing the harm to the environment, but also conducive to the health of manufacturers and users.
At the same time, the traditional ink dependence on oil is non-renewable resources, with the use of increasingly exhausted, energy crisis broke out, oil prices are soaring and oil manufacturing began targeting renewable plant resources, soy ink used in soybean oil from the natural, can be infinitely renewable, and biodegradable, no matter from the Angle of resource utilization from environmental protection, Have incomparable advantages than traditional ink.
Waste paper printed with soybean ink is easy to deink, and less damage to paper fiber. This characteristic of soybean ink helps the recycling of recycled paper industry. The research of Western Michigan University, which is famous for papermaking technology in the United States, has confirmed this characteristic. Usually more than 80% of newspaper paper using recycled paper, using the characteristics of soybean ink, waste paper recycling recycling waste less, recycling cost is low, very competitive industry. The waste soybean ink residue after deinking treatment is easy to degrade, which is beneficial to sewage treatment and control the discharge water quality.
According to the Newspaper Association of America, newspaper readers often get their hands blackened with ink while reading. This is because the ink on the substrate is easily rubbed off after printing with traditional ink. But soybean ink in this respect has a lot of solvents, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon compound content is low, use to reduce VOC emissions, thereby reducing the harm to the environment, but also conducive to the health of manufacturers and users.
Soy ink is used in offset lithographic printing on paper (used in printing newspapers) and may be used on corrugated packaging, on timber, leather, ceramic tiles, in making some tattoo inks and for screen printing.
Soy ink is now also used in digital toners for printers.
