Flexography has become the mainstream technology in the field of packaging and special printing due to its environmental protection, high efficiency, wide material adaptability, and cost advantages. The following is an analysis from the perspective of core application scenarios, typical products, and technical advantages:
1. Packaging printing: core application areas
1. Flexible packaging (accounting for more than 60%)
Typical products: food packaging bags (such as potato chip bags and candy films), daily chemical packaging (shampoo films and wet wipes packaging), pharmaceutical packaging (aluminum foil composite films), etc.
Technical advantages:
Material compatibility: It can print plastic films (PE, PP, PET, etc.) with a thickness of 0.01-0.2mm, which meets the needs of high-barrier composite films.
Environmentally friendly ink: Water-based ink has passed food contact safety certifications such as FDA and GB 9685, and there is no risk of solvent migration.
Online processing: It supports one-stop completion of printing + lamination + slitting to reduce the cost of process flow.
2. Pre-printing of corrugated boxes
Typical products: home appliances, furniture, and fast-moving consumer goods outer boxes (such as Xiaomi mobile phone color boxes and Coca-Cola promotional boxes).
Technical advantages:
High-precision printing: 175-200 LPI resolution can restore the brand VI color system, replacing traditional offset pre-printing.
Abrasion resistance: UV curing ink has strong adhesion and resistance to stacking friction, avoiding the falling off of pictures and texts during transportation.
Structural protection: The pre-printing process is printed before the corrugated forming to avoid the damage of offset printing to the strength of the corrugated.
3. Label printing
Typical products: self-adhesive labels (beverage bottle labels, daily chemical product labels), in-mold labels (bottled water labels), and RFID electronic label substrates.
Technical advantages:
Thin material adaptability: 30-100 μm film labels can be printed, supporting high-speed labeling machines (800 sheets/minute).
Special processes: in-line hot stamping, cold foil transfer, and local glazing to enhance the added value of labels.
2. Special industrial printing: expanding the application boundaries
1. Sanitary product packaging
Typical products: sanitary napkin/diaper outer packaging, medical dressing packaging.
Technical advantages:
Clean production: fully enclosed ink supply system reduces dust pollution and meets GMP workshop requirements.
Anti-counterfeiting function: in-line printing of microtext and fluorescent ink to improve product anti-counterfeiting level.
2. Building materials and decorative films
Typical products: PVC wallpaper, floor wear layer, and furniture decorative film.
Technical advantages:
Thick material printing: can handle 0.1-3mm PVC and PP sheets to meet the needs of the building materials industry.
Abrasion-resistant ink: UV-curing ink passes the Taber abrasion test (500 turns/0.5mg), and the service life is extended by 3 times.
3. Textile transfer printing
Typical products: sportswear printing, home textile fabric patterns, and flag printing.
Technical advantages:
High-precision overprinting: more than six-color printing units achieve gradual transition, color difference ΔE≤2.
Energy-saving process: The thermal transfer temperature is 180-200℃, which is 20% lower than that of gravure printing, and energy consumption is reduced by 15%.
III. Publishing and commercial printing: market segment penetration
1. Pre-printing of newspapers and magazines
Typical products: supermarket promotional posters, regional newspaper inserts.
Technical advantages:
High-speed production: The speed of the unit flexographic printing machine reaches 400 m/min, and the daily production capacity exceeds 500,000 prints.
Low cost: The unit price of water-based ink is 30% lower than that of offset ink, and the comprehensive cost is reduced by 18%.
2. Environmentally friendly paper bags and envelopes
Typical products: branded handbags, express document envelopes, and file bags.
Technical advantages:
Green certification: Use FSC-certified paper + soy ink to meet carbon neutrality requirements.
Functional expansion: In-line die-cutting, creasing, and box gluing to achieve full process control from printing to molding.
4. Comparative analysis of flexographic printing technology advantages
Technical indicators Flexographic printing Gravure printing Offset printing Digital printing
Printing speed: 300-400 m/min 200-300 m/min 150-250 m/min (web) 50-150 m/min
Plate-making cost Low (resin plate) High (electric engraving plate) Medium (PS plate) No plate-making fee
Environmental protection Water-based/UV ink, VOCs < 5% Solvent-based ink, VOCs 20-30% Oil-based ink, VOCs 10-15% Water-based/UV ink, VOCs < 3%
Material thickness 0.01-10mm 0.01-0.3mm, 0.05-0.5mm (mainly paper), 0.01-0.5mm
Applicable scenarios Medium- and long-running packaging, high environmental protection requirements Long-running, high-end packaging, metallic color printing Fine packaging, books, and periodicals Short version: variable data, personalized customization
V. Industry trends and typical cases
1. Green packaging drives technology upgrades.
Case: Nestlé baby food packaging uses flexographic water-based ink, which has passed the EU AP (2004) 129 certification, and the solvent residue is <2 ppm.
Technology: UV LED curing technology reduces energy consumption by 40%, and the curing speed is increased to 300 m/min.
2. Intelligentization improves production efficiency.
Case: A cigarette packaging printing company introduced a flexographic online inspection system to achieve 100% full inspection, and the scrap rate dropped from 3% to 0.5%.
Technology: AI visual recognition + closed-loop control system, automatically correcting the overprint error of ±0.02mm.
3. New materials expand the application boundaries.
Case: Flexographic technology realizes 0.08mm PET single film printing, which is used for new energy battery insulation film, with a temperature resistance of -40℃~150℃.
Technology: Low-temperature curing ink (80℃) matches the thermal deformation threshold of the film, and the adhesion reaches 5B (ASTM D3359).
Conclusion
Flexographic printing occupies a dominant position in the packaging field, especially in food packaging, corrugated paper pre-printing, label printing, and other environmentally friendly and medium- and long-run order scenarios. With the popularization of water-based inks, UV LED curing, and online intelligent technology breakthroughs, flexographic printing is accelerating its penetration into market segments such as building materials, textiles, and commercial printing, becoming the core force driving the green transformation of the printing industry.
