Both UV and aqueous inkjet are growing as alternatives to electrophotography (EP) in label converting, and like EP they complement flexography as a production-level print technology. Where do UV inkjet and aqueous inkjet fit?

To get some answers, Keypoint Intelligence – InfoTrends recently interviewed Diversified Labeling Solutions (DLS), a major converter with a long history of using both UV and aqueous inkjet. Our interview contact was Bob Hakman, DLS’s President.

To start, let’s provide a little history. At this time, most inkjet for production-level color label printing uses UV curing inks, and as recently as 2012 nearly all inkjet for mainstream label converters was UV curing. UV inkjet’s core strengths—particularly its ability to run intermittently without head clogging, and also its ability to produce high-resolution images that are very durable—have certainly helped it to advance. More recently, though, production digital printers that use aqueous inks have become more competitive. Prime examples include Epson’s SurePress L4034A, which was introduced in 2014 and also the high-speed printers of a few Memjet OEMS, such as Colordyne and Innovative Print Technologies, which joined the market at about the same time. Finally, a few products also based on Memjet and its aqueous inks have established a “miniature” inkjet press category of sorts, with Afinia, New Solution, and Trojan Label all contributing.