By: Meg Campbell Austria's Herold Druck has become the first newspaper publisher in the world to install an ultra-violet curing system to its offset press. The newly fashioned hybrid UV/coldset web press went on-line at the Viennese publisher's print facility at the end of February, running at a speed of 90,000 copies per hour (a web speed of 37 ft/sec (11.25 m/sec).
The Herold is the pilot site for the new UV dryer, a "closed-chamber" system which consists of a new Colorman tower with two nine-cylinder satellite units and two Innocure systems from Eltex-Elektrostatik GmbH with two UV lamps each, positioned between the UV-enabled printing units.
UV production results in more vivid color and permits presses to print on a wider variety of stock, including coated and glossy varieties, because of its quick-drying properties.
The new curing system activates photoinitiators in UV-sensitive ink, but it also creates an electric charge that lifts oxygen, which interferes with acrylic polymerization, away from the paper's surface, leaving what Sun Chemical Coldset Product Director Steve Lilley called, at last month's Nexpo, "a nitrogen blanket" during UV curing.
Members of the PrintCity consortium of vendors involved in the pilot at the Vienna newspaper printer say the "inert UV" process provides more gloss while requiring a third less electricity. Man Roland also points out that since UV utilizes light rather than heat as its drying activator, paper shrinkage is virtually eliminated, which is a critical factor when a newspaper is producing coldset- and UV-printed pages in the same publication.
Herold Druck publishes three dailies, Die Presse, Wiener Zeitung, and Heute, as well as a variety of commercial products such as weeklies, free-distribution newspapers and catalogues.
Austria's Herold Druck has become the first newspaper publisher in the world to install an ultra-violet curing system to its offset press. The newly fashioned hybrid UV/coldset web press went on-line at the Viennese publisher's print facility at the end of February, running at a speed of 90,000 copies per hour (a web speed of 37 ft/sec (11.25 m/sec).
The Herold is the pilot site for the new UV dryer, a "closed-chamber" system which consists of a new Colorman tower with two nine-cylinder satellite units and two Innocure systems from Eltex-Elektrostatik GmbH with two UV lamps each, positioned between the UV-enabled printing units.
UV production results in more vivid color and permits presses to print on a wider variety of stock, including coated and glossy varieties, because of its quick-drying properties.
The new curing system activates photoinitiators in UV-sensitive ink, but it also creates an electric charge that lifts oxygen, which interferes with acrylic polymerization, away from the paper's surface, leaving what Sun Chemical Coldset Product Director Steve Lilley called, at last month's Nexpo, "a nitrogen blanket" during UV curing.
Members of the PrintCity consortium of vendors involved in the pilot at the Vienna newspaper printer say the "inert UV" process provides more gloss while requiring a third less electricity. Man Roland also points out that since UV utilizes light rather than heat as its drying activator, paper shrinkage is virtually eliminated, which is a critical factor when a newspaper is producing coldset- and UV-printed pages in the same publication.
Herold Druck publishes three dailies, Die Presse, Wiener Zeitung, and Heute, as well as a variety of commercial products such as weeklies, free-distribution newspapers and catalogues.
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here