The anilox roller is the core of the flexo press, and this sentence has been mentioned several times. From the birth of the first anilox roller to the present decades, people have been looking for better coating materials.
So far, ceramic materials have been considered as the best web surface material. Laser engraved ceramic mesh rolls have high abrasion resistance and do not react chemically with inks and cleaning solutions. However, despite this, it has some problems. The most important of these is the residual porosity of the surface, which causes the ink to penetrate into it, which not only increases the difficulty of cleaning, but also affects the inking effect of some high-line mesh rolls. Over the years, people have been experimenting with other materials, but they have not achieved the desired results.
However, the new generation of terolux roller rolls recently introduced by TLS has claimed to have successfully solved this problem. The surface of the wire roll is Wcco (tungsten carbide-cobalt alloy), which is supersonic flame sprayed to ensure maximum material density. The figure below shows a comparison of the enlarged surface of the Terolux mesh roll (left) and the ceramic mesh roll (again).
Wcco coating is abrasion resistant, has high shear strength and better ink transferability. Hardness is much higher than hard chrome plating and is therefore often used as an alternative to chrome plating.
In the actual printing test (using 70L/cm net, 400m/min printing speed, printing material is LDPE), Terolux (left, 460L/CM) shows better dot than ceramic mesh roller (right, 340L/cm) consistency. See the picture below for comparison:
Under the same conditions, the field printing comparison chart is as follows:
In the flexo industry, higher line counts and greater ink densities are a trend, and this inevitably requires higher line counts and deeper mesh roll engraving. When using ceramic mesh rolls, people may I have encountered problems with ink release. When using Terolux, the ink is more transferable and easier to clean due to its smoother surface.
I wonder if this
will bring about new changes in the flexo world, let us wait and see
