Read more: New mineral oil-free printing inks in the deinking test
Philipp Stolper (Fogra) reviewed the current status of research into mineral oil-free printing inks. Since 2016, the Fogra Research Institute for Media Technologies has been working in a funded project on the market launch of mineral oil-free coldset inks. The aim of the research project was to develop two ink series to such an extent that their permanent use in print shops is possible. This was to be proven by three-month practical trials. In addition to the applicability, one focus was on the deinkability of the products as well as the analysis of the mineral oil content according to the BfR method. The newly developed inks were used in the printing press of the Frankfurt Societäts-Druckerei. Thus the functionality was only tested on one type of coldset press. First printing trials on the coldset press started in 2018; since then, deinkability has been monitored by applying INGEDE Method 11 to print samples from the coldset press. In 2020, the inks were ready to be used in a long-term trial for three months. During this time, deinkability was regularly checked. In addition, identical print samples could be produced with the conventional inks of an ink manufacturer. Two types of paper were used for these deinkability tests: one with 50 per cent DIP and one consisting of 100 per cent DIP. This made it possible to compare the deinking properties of the mineral oil-free inks with those of the conventional, mineral oil-based inks. The results show that the deinkability of mineral oil-free coldset inks has not yet been fully solved and that further efforts must be made to achieve this goal. The detailed evaluation of the deinking tests was presented in this paper by two different ink manufacturers. France is the only European country that has defined a legal ban on mineral oils on paper and packaging. As the responsible producer organisation for packaging and graphic papers in France, Citeo participated in a global action plan on mineral oil issues in 2018, introduced a malus system for packaging (2020) and graphic papers (2021) and did some R&D work to help develop some low mineral oil alternatives. The organisation was represented by Jean-François Robert.