Bold and innovative printing
The Nozomi 12000 MP digitally prints high- quality graphics directly to metal, aluminium and tinplate sheets without the need for plates. Image: EFI
Dominique Huret highlights some of the printing presses and equipment for metal printing on display at the 2024 drupa trade fair
After an eight-year hiatus, drupa, the world’s biggest fair for the print industry, returned in May 2024. The exhibition, based in Dusseldorf, Germany, took place over 18 halls and showcased many important players in the print technology sector.
Drupa saw a total of 1,828 exhibitors from 52 nations, among which Chinese exhibitors made up 22 per cent – just ahead of the Germans companies present. The international share of the visitors was 80 per cent, with attendees coming from a record 174 countries. After Europe, Asia was the most strongly represented region, with 22 per cent attendance, followed by America, with 12 per cent attendance.
The European beverage can industry is booming, with production reaching an incredible 61 billion cans per year. To ensure their products stand out on shelves, brands are turning to specially printed cans.
Printing techniques
Offset printing is the widely used technique for high- volume production, due to its cost-effectiveness and ability to produce high-quality, detailed images. This method involves creating a plate, typically made of aluminium, which contains the image to be printed. The plate is then coated with ink and transferred to a rubber blanket, before being pressed onto the can. Suitable for printing on non- porous substrates such as metal, flexography is often used for simple designs with fewer colours. Flexography uses flexible relief plates made of rubber or plastic. These plates are inked and then transferred directly onto the cans. It is similar to a modern letterpress.
New and innovative print techniques have revolutionised the possibilities available to beverage companies.
Digital printing allows the promotion of brands in original and unique ways. It involves directly printing the image onto the can using inkjet or laser technology. There is no need for printing plates, making the process faster and more flexible.
This is ideal for short runs, customised prints and prototyping, because it allows for quick changes and personalisation, without the need for new plates. Generally, UV curable ink is commonly used to print on aluminium because water or solvent-based inks can take too long to dry.
The metal packaging industry is no longer left out from flexible digital inkjet printing. On the innovations front at drupa, Electronics For Imaging (EFI) announced the release of its Nozomi 12000 MP. Specifically designed for printing on metal, aluminium and tinplate, this is an industrial inkjet printing press, using single-pass and LED inkjet technology for direct-to-metal printing, built for 24/7 production.
On the printing press, a feeder, registration table, printer and transition tables follow each other in a full line length of 66 feet or 20 metres. The maximum print width is 3.9 feet, with a productivity of up to 164 linear feet per minute, with colour configurations in CMYK, CMYK + White, CMYK + Orange or CMYK + White + Orange. EFI Nozomi 12000 MP inks are designed with optimal colour and performance characteristics and a wide colour space that covers 83 per cent of the Pantone gamut, creating durable images on metal substrates, while maintaining flexibility for forming.
Fiery, a leader in digital front end innovation, provides its NZ-1000 digital front end server for the EFI Nozomi, for image and colour quality with various features. They include colour management and a tool set for late-stage image editing.
EFI’s Nozomi 12000 MP press. Image: EFI
Standards redefined
In 2021, Koenig & Bauer Metalprint presented its MetalStar 4, a pioneering press in metal decorating, seven years after the market launch of the MetalStar3. At the time, over 400 printing units had been installed worldwide. This year at drupa, the German company joined forces with Neos, a young Italian company specialising in inkjet printing for industrial applications. Together they have developed the MetJET Pro, a high-speed digital printing solution for metal decoration.
The press will run at 2,500 sheets per hour using inks that comply with European regulations for indirect food contact regulations. The modular systems are suitable for the requirements of many metal printing applications such as the production of three-piece cans, crown caps, closures, etc. The machine will begin its crucial testing at the American steel and tin products distribution group, Reynolds Services (RSI), in early 2025.
Spanish company, Barberán, is a leader in digital printing and surface finishing machinery. Among other innovations at drupa, Barberán presented its multi-substrate single pass digital printing line. It belongs to Barberán’s Jetmaster series and stands out
for offering an unprecedented speed, guaranteeing efficient production with all batch types. This offers the ability to handle variable data seamlessly and without design constraints.
The Jetmasters are available with speeds from 20 up to 120 metres per minute, four or six colours, single or double print row, and UV inks, from four approved ink suppliers. The Barcelona-based equipment from Barberán is proven to be perfectly adaptable and suitable for printing on metal sheets. According to the company, the Jetmaster series leaves behind the expenses of traditional printing processes.
R&D work in progress
HP Indigo, leader in digital printing equipment, has actively encouraged small start-up teams from its staff to take a blue-sky approach in working on projects. One of these, called Cantastic, deals with decoration for aluminium beverage cans. A team is working on using the LEPx technology to print directly onto the cans as a direct-to-shape solution for short to medium runs.
HP Indigo is also working with Actega to develop a separate metal decoration solution for cans. Much metal decoration relies on offset printing but that has all the limitations associated with analogue solutions, and generates a lot of waste; every metal sheet counts because it costs a lot more than paper. The Indigo approach is to print to a thin film that is laminated to the metal sheet and then can be used to create three-piece cans. This system stemmed from a customer request and is already in use in Brazil. This is work in progress and will be unveiled before or at the next edition of drupa in 2028.
Image: Messe Dusseldorf / ctillmann
This feature article is restricted to logged-in paid subscribers.
Login or subscribe now to view this exclusive content.
