How Soybean Oil Ink Meets Green Needs

The main components of ordinary traditional inks are vegetable oils such as linseed oil. Why is the ink using soybean oil green?

When Xu Tianping, general manager of Beijing Yinlian Printing Equipment Co., Ltd. recommended its agent's soybean oil ink to customers, he encountered doubts from Beijing Golden Eagle Packaging Co., Ltd.

In fact, such doubts also exist in most printing companies. So, is soybean oil ink just a conceptual hype?

Out of the misunderstanding

In order to answer the above questions, it is necessary to first verify the body of soybean oil ink. The following are some common misunderstandings.

Misunderstanding 1: Soybean oil ink is 100% made from soybean oil

The ink is composed of pigments, resins, mineral oil, and additives. The green ink is the environmental protection improvement of each component of the ink. Soybean oil ink is the replacement of some petroleum-based solvents with soybean oil, and the amount of linseed oil in vegetable oil is also used. Therefore, the corresponding reduction.

The content of pigments and resins is the same as that of ordinary traditional inks. The specific composition can be seen in Table 1.

Misunderstanding 2: The use of other vegetable oil inks is not environmentally friendly. It is not a bad idea to use vegetable oils such as rapeseed oil to replace some petroleum-based solvents. The effect of environmental protection is also the same.

The reason why soybean oil ink is highly recommended is that, on the one hand, soybean production in the United States and other regions is very large, and there is no problem with the supply of ink and other industries; on the other hand, it is formulated under the auspices of the American Soybean Association and the American Ink Technology Association. Strict soybean oil ink standards, only certified ink products can be affixed with soybean oil logo, which for the purchase of ink for ordinary consumers, can get quality assurance.

Myth 3: Soybean oil ink is pure green ink

This is not true, because the use of soybean oil as an alternative to petroleum solvents can only partially reduce the volatile organic solvent (VOC) content, rather than completely avoiding it. For many previous ink manufacturers, the soyoil ink has good deinking properties and degradability. According to the current treatment technology and the limitations of the composition of the soybean oil ink itself, it is not as good as people think.

However, with the large number of soybean oil inks used in the global printing industry, its contribution to environmental protection is not to be underestimated.

Myth 4: Soybean oil ink is very expensive

As mentioned before, soy oil inks merely replace some of the cheap petroleum-based solvents, and will not increase the production cost of inks. It is due to the fact that there are only a few manufacturers that currently produce and use soy oil inks and cannot form cost-scale advantages. It is believed that with the gradual recognition of the soybean oil ink in the market, this tiny cost difference will completely disappear.

Green comes from this

In fact, the soybean oil ink is not based on the use of soybean oil to paste a green label, but based on a comprehensive consideration of the various components of the ink, so as to achieve the overall environmental effects, see Table 2.

Here, as an example, C Ecopure soybean oil ink produced by Maoming Sakata Ink Co., Ltd., represented by Beijing Today Inkprint Printing Equipment Co., Ltd., will be introduced as an example.

The pigments are strictly selected by the manufacturer, and the quality of the pigments is controlled according to test tests. SGS heavy metal detection is used to ensure that pigments containing heavy metals are not used.

Resin

In order to enable the use of more than 20% soybean oil in the ink formulation, the soybean oil label of the American Soybean Oil Association is obtained, and the use of mineral oil is reduced, and the use of aromatic-free mineral oil is changed. Sakata Ink Co., Ltd. has been operating since 1997. The study of resins suitable for this system is currently the third generation of research results, with great improvements in terms of primary drying and dryness, and the basic properties of inks are comparable to those of traditional inks, even in the initial dry, dry, friction-resistant, etc. The performance has exceeded that of traditional inks. This environment-friendly resin is currently the leading technology of Sakata Ink Co., Ltd.

Vegetable oil

At present, most of the produced inks have a vegetable oil content of 5% to 15%, and are mainly linseed oil. C Ecopure soybean oil ink produced by Sakata Ink Co., Ltd. has a soybean oil content of more than 20% and reduces the amount of mineral oil. Content, which also reduces the production of VOCs

mineral oil

At present, the content of the solvent in the ink is 30% to 45%, and generally contains aromatic hydrocarbons, which are harmful to the health of the ink production operator and the printing worker, and the residual solvent in the printed matter is also not beneficial to the use of the customer.

CEcopure's mineral oil content in soybean oil ink is controlled below 20%. Through the deep processing of aromatic hydrocarbon solvents, harmful substances in aromatic hydrocarbons are removed and completely produced in accordance with the standards of the Environmental Protection Agency of the Japan Environment Agency.

Source: China Printing Materials Business