Impressive design opportunities and forward-looking development activities

The company will be exhibiting its range of products for the decoration of hollow and flat glass at what is the leading international showcase for the glass industry. In keeping with the fair’s slogan “Discover the World of Glass”, visitors to the RUCO stand A32 in Hall 12 are invited to explore the impressive design opportunities available for this sector.

Special focus will be placed on screen printing inks of series 935UV. Being, so to say, the ‘flagship’ among RUCO printing inks for glass decoration, these inks are already proving their excellence in many different fields.

Series 935UV two-component inks are suitable for multi-colour inline printing and feature high resistance to chemical, alcoholic and cosmetic fill products as well as good dishwasher resistance. Curing under standard UV bulbs, these inks eliminate the need for thermal post-treatment in the form of time-consuming and expensive oven drying. This allows for more streamlined and cost-effective decoration processes.

From a visual point of view, inks of series 935UV open up an impressive variety of innovative design opportunities. In addition to the basic inks, which offer high opacity and brilliance of colours, there is also a wide range of special-effect inks available for achieving matt and frosted finishes as well as metallic and glitter effects, to name just a few. These inks are used, for instance, for decorating flat glass for gaming machines, furniture or shower doors, and also when it comes to hollow glassware for the cosmetic and other industries. Unlike ceramic printing inks, these UV inks can also be used for realizing special fancy embellishments using fluorescent and transparent colours as well as 4-colour images – such opportunities are attractive especially for highly image-conscious segments such as advertising.

Moreover, series 935UV inks also offer a number of decisive advantages regarding user and environmental friendliness. Compared to ceramic and solvent-based inks, consumers are able to enjoy lead-free formulations as well as high chemical resistance. 935UV inks are free from heavy metals and comply with the limits specified by European standard EN 71, part 3. In addition, they meet the requirements laid down in the California Proposition 65, the most stringent environmental laws worldwide.

In addition to UV-curable printing inks, RUCO offers three types of conventional ink series for glass decoration: Both the 110GE series of one-component oven-curing inks for screen and pad printing, and two-component screen printing inks of series 110GK are lightfast, weather-resistant and highly opaque and satisfy the demand for good chemical and mechanical resistance as well as high elasticity. 110GE inks achieve these characteristics during final oven curing. By comparison, 110GK inks are physically drying and feature a subsequent chemical cross-linking process. Universal two-component pad printing inks of series T01 round off the RUCO range for glass and ceramic decoration. These high-gloss inks also offer excellent mechanical and chemical resistance and are lightfast, weather-resistant and highly opaque.

In cooperation with leading machine manufacturers, specialists in RUCO’s R&D sector are working full throttle on the development of printing inks suitable for use with UV-LED systems. Ink curing by means of UV-LED is a new forward-looking technology. The use of light-emitting diodes offers a number of advantages compared with conventional systems. Lower consumption of electricity is to be mentioned here in particular – an advantage that in all probability will become ever more important in the future in the wake of rising energy costs. But the UV-LED method also opens up new fields of application, since it can be used for heat-sensitive substrates too. RUCO has already achieved excellent results in the decoration of flat glass and is confident that they will be able to launch a corresponding innovative ink series on the market in the near future.