Litho printing plate technology can appear mature: there is a range of options in both thermal and violet diode imaging, using reduced chemistry or that developed on press, that are resilient to UV inks and founts and that are suited to longer production runs without the need for baking.
Despite this, the big three of Agfa, Kodak and Fujifilm continue to develop printing plates, while outside these suppliers a second tier of plates from Spain’s Ipagsa and Brazil’s IBF can provide a similar range of plates, while Chinese made plates are starting to make inroads.
A further complication is that patent protection on the first thermal plates will begin to expire next year, opening the way for a flood of lower cost products.
At Drupa, Kodak predicted that 30% of plate volume worldwide would be process-free by 2019. It has invested heavily in Sonora, both the technology itself and to extend the user base.
“We have spent tens of millions of dollars to upgrade plate making facilities around the world,” says CEO Jeff Clarke, namely the addition of a plate line at Columbus and in Oesterrode. Kodak was rewarded by signing up Pareto Print as the largest user to date with annual consumption of 300,000m2.
Kodak is also supplying VLF format Sonora plates to Polish display print customer Royalpack, taking what was once a small format concept into the largest sheet formats. When its overall plate volumes are down 1% according to Kodak, sales of Sonora have risen 8% in the last six months, 17% when the drop in Latin America is removed.
The company has been focused on building the portfolio of customers, so that Sonora XP product line is one of the most important in the entire business. Today Sonora XP plate is responsible of 16% of all Kodak revenues.
“Over the next four years, pretty much the whole industry will shift to process-free plates,” says Kodak senior vice president Brad Kruchten. “This saves a huge amount of water and energy.
“And the plates will be suitable for a growing range of print and packaging applications.” Currently these are served through Electra Max or the Sword negative plates though a Sonora UV plate is coming.
Kruchten says: “It has been launched in Japan and is in beta testing elsewhere. It will move to controlled sales in Q4. We see great opportunity for packaging applications. We believe that by the next Drupa, the majority of litho plates will be process-free.”
While the environmental impact and the effect of legislation to restrict the use of chemicals, the real driver he says will be profits through not having to pay for these products. “Sonora XP is already a $120 million revenue product; it will be double that by the next Drupa. We are now getting into larger printers who are using more plate material.”
Fujifilm is also aiming to expand the process-free portfolio, introducing the Superia ZD alongside the ProT3. “Superia ZD has a better run length and can cope with LED and H-UV inks,” says European product manager Sean Lane.
It features MGZ, as a new graining structure to improve ink water balance. This builds on the MGV graining used in the ProT3. A new accelerator has been included in the coating which forms a harder more resilient cross linked high density network during exposure to the imager. The third enhancement is S-HDS which is a treatment to improve the hydrophilic properties of the non image area.
Fujifilm claims that the new plate will also be suited to heatset web offset printing, which is certainly beyond the scope of the ProT3 plate. This, however, has a further environmental benefit in that the Tilburg plant where European volumes are produced can be completely powered by wind turbine energy.
The plate becomes an important part of the Superia press optimisation programme that Fujifilm has devised as a means of managing the performance of a litho pressroom, the emphasis on trouble free, profitable operation.
“It’s about resource savings and the financial benefit to an end user,” says Lane. “We run an audit to measure performance against five parameters including labour impact, energy use, water, and so on. The idea is that a printer will be able to save money and become more environmentally friendly,” he adds.
A mobile app includes an ROI calculator where the inputs are assessed and the changes proposed by Fujifilm are compared. This uses the manufacturers’ recommended settings as a base point, and from this energy use, consumable costs, water and chemistry use are measured and compared to show what savings will be possible.
“It gives the saving in a user specific situation both in the current situation and into the future,” Lane explains. “For example, being smarter in plate production gives measurable financial savings.”
While a process-free plate may cost more, there is no chemistry to buy and no processor to buy, operate and maintain. “Most printers are unaware of their real costs,” Lane continues. “The process gives them an insight into their own business that perhaps they didn’t have before.”
Agfa’s Azura process-free plate family has pushed the performance ceiling upwards into longer runs and VLF sizes. But this does not yet cover every application, UV for example. The company introduced the Energy Elite Eco plate at Drupa.
The Energy Elite has been the plate for longer runs and harsher operating conditions. This can now be processed with far less chemistry, Agfa handing out miniature bottles of Antwerp’s own medicinal liquor to make the point that just a few millilitres is enough to cope with large areas of plate.
A new style of plate processor where water is recycled internally will also have a huge impact on water consumption. “It uses only 40% of the volume compared to a standard processor,” says Paul Adriaenson. “And just 30ml of chemistry is needed to process four plates. The waste bath only needs cleaning after 20,000 plates and then it takes just 15 minutes to clean.
“For many printers that means cleaning just once or twice a year,” he says. “We are taking the ideas and experience we have from chemistry-free plates to conventional platemaking.
“We believe there is still a need for conventional plates: the Energy Elite Eco will run to 600,000 impressions without baking which makes it a very interesting plate for customers that are still producing long runs.”
Hence the message about sustainability has become a little more nuanced. Agfa has created the Eco3 message to cover the environmental aspect, the economic performance and the extreme convenience of the plate family.
The environmental and ecological argument adds a further layer of nuance with the Certus Aqua+ plate. This is a thermal plate which claims an environmental benefit despite being developed in a standard processor.
The advantage is delivered by a new type of shallow surface graining which reduces, it claims, water consumption by around 25% and ink consumption by at least 10%.
The plate is currently being used at a number of UK sites and UK distributor Ink and Printing Technologies managing director Clive Harper explains that it is living up to expectations.
It will be advantageous in achieving a balanced press set up, cutting waste at makeready (depending on paper and other conditions), giving better consistency and ultimately a better ecological performance because fewer consumables are used.
The plate is currently being assessed at a number of sites in the UK. If these go well, Ink and Printing Technologies can expect a steady interest. “We will clean down and recalibrate the press,” says Harper. “Then run half the production with their existing plate and half the production run ours. It always shows that they are using less water and ink.”
As well as a cost and resource saving, there are benefits in terms of improved rub resistance and marking, better drying and less risk of paper stretch. The company has been talking with packaging producers where the demands are perhaps greatest, certainly in terms of consistency.
The plate is produced in China on a line commissioned by Creo to have every conceivable feature. It results in a very consistent production that is turned towards producing own label as well as Certus branded plates. “When companies are rebadging the plate, it would be very quickly apparent if there was a problem with consistency and the contract quickly cancelled,” Harper says.
As well as the Aqua+, there is a develop on press plate and Duplo, a plate specified for UV printing without the need for baking. Other plates are in preparation for release in coming years.
Ink and Printing is in no rush. The Crawley company, says Harper, aims for a long term partnership with customers rather than a deal based on price alone. “The plate is established in Spain and in Eastern Europe for example. Certus has looked at the UK market and realised there are opportunities, but wants to develop a proper business over five years.
“It is not about reaching targets for volume of plate material or revenue. For us it is about margin. We want to make a margin and it’s important that the customer also sees a benefit. We do not want to be selling on price and we want to build confidence in the brand and a sustainable business supported by people with industry knowledge.”
This is also the strategy that Presstek is adopting to introduce its develop on press and thermal plates to the UK. It can supply these to work in a platesetter with 830nm laser or with the company’s own Dimension Pro2 platesetter.
“It is a replacement market,” says production director Ian Pollock, “so we need something that we can bundle with plates and can replace a platesetter that is perhaps more than seven years old.”
If the platesetter is standard product, the plate is something to get excited about, says Pollock. This is Nytro, a plate being produced at Anocoil, a plate producer that had focused mainly on the US newspaper market which Presstek acquired in March. Its experience and capacity is now trained on producing Presstek’s commercial plates including the new Nytro.
It is a negative working thermal plate processed in what amounts to soap solution. “It is a low energy requirement plate that is very fast to process in a wash out solution that is 95% water and is completely non hazardous, which, with permission, can be flushed to the drain. A printer would need to check with the local authority first.
“It has a wide latitude in the platesetter and a wide latitude on press. We have not yet found a fount solution nor an ink that it will not work with,” says Pollock.
Presstek is running trials in the UK with the plate. It is good for 200,000 impressions, perhaps as many as 1.5 million with baking though this has not been tested in either the UK or in trials in Greece and Italy. As far as Pollock is concerned this outperforms other chemistry-free plates.
“This is a plate that could take us into the packaging market,” he says. “It is a very robust plate.”
Likewise, he reckons that the GemPlate, Presstek’s develop on press plate, matches the performance of similar products. “We are hoping to set up tests for this plate in the next weeks,” says Pollock. Initial feedback could be available at the Print Show.
However, while Presstek has a line up of Class A products according to Pollock, the strategy is to provide an in depth service to the market including strong support, advice and services that include audits, colour management and consultancy. “In recent years there has been continual price erosion with printers demanding lower costs and this has to stop somewhere,” says Pollock.
Like Harper, he argues that with the right support in place to deliver the support that will keep printers in production and so create a relationship worth more than the square metre price of the consumable. “It is going to take a little while to gear up for this,” he explains.
Apex Digital Graphics has already journeyed along this path in introducing Cron’s plates to the UK market. While the Chinese manufacturer has thermal plates in the portfolio, the main attraction has been its presensitised UV plate, a throwback to pre CTP days, but which thanks to advances in imaging technology can be imaged digitally rather than through a printing down frame.
Apex has been successful pairing Cron’s platesetter (more than 3,000 units shipped worldwide) with the conventional plate. Cron has overcome the coating consistency issues that dogged earlier attempts to use presensitised plates, and technology advances have delivered powerful UV emitting laser diodes to image these plates.
It is currently completing development of what is known as Model H internally. This is a fully automated plate line with integral loading, punching, processing and delivery. It is complete automation for 2pp, 4pp and 8pp formats in a very small footprint. The platesetter will be available next year.
At around the same time Cron promises two new plates for next year as the market opens up. One is a UV plate with an eco focus, processed and washed out in a soapy solution and good for 50,000 impressions and for UV inks. The second is Emerald TP, a develop on press thermal plate which will be suitable for runs to 150,000 impressions.
European director Derek Sizer says: “We shipped our first plates in 2014 and by the middle of next year we will have a complete family of plates. And we have the capacity to produce 20 million square metres of plates a year.”
Cron is challenging to become the fourth largest plate provider in the world. Its rate of expansion suggests that it has no intention of stopping, though production facilities outside China may be needed if it plans to overtake any of the big three.
For Apex the Cron platesetter with either a UV or a thermal plate ties in nicely with the Ryobi RMGT it sells, in conventional or LED UV configuration, to compete against digital printing in terms of turnaround with a considerable cost and substrate advantage over digital printing.
It is the realisation that litho will retain a strong position in the market despite the increasing maturity of digital, that is behind the continual development of new plates, broadening the options of all kinds of printers.
The big three plate manufacturers Agfa, Kodak and Fujifilm continue to develop printing plates, while outside these suppliers a second tier of plates from Spain’s Ipagsa and Brazil’s IBF can provide a similar range of plates, while Chinese made plates are starting to make inroads.
