N-propyl alcohol versus Isopropanol alcohol

[Dan Roll]

It is not unusual for printers to be confused about alcohol and viscosity because in the printers mind viscosity is another word for thickness and it seems obvious that alcohol makes water thinner... Viscosity of liquids is essentially their resistance to flow, best measured for fountain solution purposes in an Oswalt flow vicometer. Alcohol raises the viscosity of water in a manner difficult to reproduce without using solvents just like alcohol (newtonion vs non-newtonian resistance to shear has a lot to do with it as well).
I do not think any of this is relevant to the performance of polyester plates. In my experience the difficulty with polyester plates has more to do with the fact that the image areas are not very ink receptive and if the ink is not adequately liquified by the ink system, the ink is too difficult for the plate to remove from the form rollers leading to a high ink/high water situation as the pressman has no alternative but to make more ink available. Try making the ink a little more liquid.

[BacoUK]

Low or no-alcohol printing is an excellent idea, but remember if you have a Heidelberg, KBA or manroland press then your warranty is invalidated if you do not use pressroom chemicals that have been thoroughly tested and approved by Fogra.
Komori being Japanese have not yet joined in the Fogra 'party' but their field engineers say the same thing. It is amazing to see the corrosive properties of de-mineralized / de-ionized water has on bare metal, so it is very important that the product (founts, washes etc) contain a good quality corrosition inhibitor.
My company makes these and finished products, but our target market is to find SME suppliers who have c20th products who want to catch up and in many cases overtake the 'big boys', using our formulations, surfactants and additives this becomes a 'no brainer' and short-cut to full Fogra approval.

Home