Inkjet Ink Manufacturing

Manufacturing Inks For Performance & Reliability

Thursday 4 - Friday 5 February 2021

COURSE FOCUS

This course is designed for those wishing to develop or source inkjet inks, or interested in commissioning their development and manufacture. It will help you understand the issues of development and testing, scale-up for manufacture and the manufacturing processes themselves, as well as covering the potential business models for an ink formulation or manufacturing company. As well as being of interest to inkjet technologists, managers will benefit from an understanding of the inkjet ink manufacturing process to set realistic project and revenue plans and decide whether to develop and manufacture in-house or source externally.

COURSE OUTLINE

Thursday 4 February 2021

13:20 - 13:30 Registration

13:30 Course begins

Critical aspects of inkjet systems design

  • Printheads

  • Ink

  • Ink systems

  • Motion control

Ink formulation considerations for manufacturing

  • Inkjet ink ingredients

  • Inkjet ink design & requirements

Creating robust material specifications

  • Dyes

  • Pigments

  • Polymers

  • UV cure materials

  • Functional materials

  • Solvents

  • Additives

17:00 Session ends

Friday 5 February 2021

09:00 Session begins

Testing protocols & validation for manufacturing

  • Optimisation & testing

  • Test schedules

  • Protocols

  • Testing for reliability & robustness

  • Relationship with printer

    • Printhead

    • Colour tables

    • Ink management system

Ink manufacturing

  • Quality control processes

    • QC laboratory infrastructure

    • QC laboratory equipment

  • Scale up for manufacture

    • Lab processes

    • Pilot plant trials

    • SPC parameters

Inkjet ink requirements

  • Jet break-up

  • Nozzle plate inspection

  • Drop velocity & volume

  • De-cap & latency

  • Expanding printing & lifetime

  • Image quality analysis

Manufacturing & ink plant requirements

  • Layout

  • Equipment selection

  • Manufacturing practices

  • Quality standards

12:30 - 13:30 Lunch break

13:30 Session begins

Manufacturing processes

  • Mixing regimes

    • Water based inks

    • Solvent based inks

    • UV-cure inks

  • Milling processes

  • Filtration systems

  • Degassing

  • Purification

  • Bottling

  • Packaging

Commercial considerations

  • Markets

  • Strategies

  • Costs

  • Positioning

  • Value chain

17:00 Course ends

COURSE LEADERS

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Dr Chris Nicholas, Founder & Director
Smart Chemistry, UK

Chris worked in the R&D labs at Kodak, before joining Xennia Technology as EU Program Manager.  He then worked at Tonejet Ltd as Lab Manager where he set up an Ink R&D Lab and Dispersion Manufacturing Facility.

Chris founded Smart Chemistry Ltd in 2018 as a Chemical Technology Consultancy, offering advice & services to help companies with all aspects of Industrial Inkjet Technologies, from Materials deposition, Contract R&D to Scale up and Manufacturing.  Chris has worked on a wide range of inkjet applications, including Textiles, Packaging, Smart Technologies and Security printing.

Chris graduated from the University of Manchester with a BSc (Hons) degree in Chemistry, a MSc in Polymer Chemistry from the University of Lancaster and then returned to Manchester to complete his PhD in Solid State Polymer Electrolytes. 

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Dr Tim Phillips, Founder & Director
Catenary Solutions, UK

Tim Phillips has extensive experience in challenging inkjet integration projects, spending eight years working at Xennia Technology Ltd, the leading inkjet solutions company that was acquired by Sensient in 2015. This involved working with a wide range of companies developing technology for new applications including textiles, ceramics, packaging, décor and functional material deposition for printed electronics and biomedical uses. Tim founded Catenary Solutions in 2015 to bring this knowledge of digital solution development and marketing to a wider audience. Tim has also presented IMI Europe courses in the past including the Inkjet Academy and Inkjet Ink Manufacturing & Digital Textile Printing courses.

Tim graduated from the University of Cambridge with an MA Honours degree in Natural Sciences, and completed his PhD in liquid crystal physics and chemistry at the University of Bristol. More recently he studied for an Executive MBA at the University of Warwick.

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