Modern Eco-solvent Inkjet Ink Formulation

Eco-solvent inkjet printers have really flourished because of the desire, and in many cases, the need to move away from hard solvents like MEK and Cyclohexanone. 

These 'hard' solvents were historically necessary because of two main truths:

 

1. The types of resins that were being used as binders in these inks necessitated the presence of strong solvents (solubility)
2. The types of substrates being printed lent themselves to those hard solvents

Certainly in the case of many industrial applications, where printing is done on steel and various other metals and plastics; these printing surfaces are often untreated and contaminated. And thus, they don't really offer a pristine surface to gain good ink adhesion.Therefore, solvents like MEK and MIBK impart great 'etching' ability to the ink, allowing the ink to anchor more effectively to these surfaces.

But it's time now to move towards better quality, environment friendly inks, let's see how eco-solvent inks are serving the purpose: