Opportunities Ahead For Screen Printing

For many products including textiles and in-mold decoration, screen printing is still a crucial printing process. Although digital printing has impacted screen’s share in some fields, the advantages of screen printing will continue to make it the choice for a number of products going forward.

Screen Printing: Key Advantages

Screen printing’s main advantages are flexibility and productivity.

“The main advantage of screen printing is productivity and flexibility,” said Tito Echiburu, GM of Avient’s Specialty Inks business. “Our inks provide a wide array of printing techniques that can help printers achieve whatever finish they may be looking for. Additionally, we have inks tailored to perform on whatever substrate they may be printing on which can vary from cotton to polyester, or a wide array of blended fabrics that exist in the market today.” 

Paul Arnold, Magna Colors’ marketing manager noted that, when it comes printing clothes, screen printing still holds its own. This is due to the large-scale production runs it can provide and the high quality of delivery.

“Once a screen printing run has been set up and configured, prints can produced swiftly, at scale, and with minimal maintenance and down-time. In turn, this offers printers a lower cost per print that other technologies can’t offer,” Arnold observed.

“Alongside this, water-based garment screen printing offers multiple benefits when compared to other technologies like DTG printing, including stronger ink coverage and higher opacity, especially for large, blocky and vector artwork,” he added. “There’s also a huge range of special effects available within screen printing inks that can’t be achieved in other systems, including metallics, glitters, puff, textures and high build.”

Dr. Hans-Peter Erfurt, manager IMD/FIM technology at Pröll GmbH, observed that the screen printing is the most versatile printing process.

“Fine details, large areas, transparent and opaque colors, lacquers, and special pigments can be applied easily on various substrates in many material thicknesses Dr. Erfurt said. “The outstanding brilliance and durability of screen printed colors, compared to other printing techniques, are of greatest interest for the decoration of design oriented IMD/FIM parts.

“Night design applications, which are particularly important for climate control panels, keypads, and switches, can be realized in screen printing technology by processing transparent, semi-transparent and highly opaque color shades,” he added. “Mirror inks, pearlescent and metallic inks can be processed by screen printing and utilized for IMD/FIM applications.”

What is the Customer Looking for?

Printing companies are searching for key characteristics in screen inks. They want versatility.

“On-screen performance and productivity are the number one items we focus on from a production point of view,” said Echiburu. “This can be achieved in a variety of ways, such as wet on wet printing and Pantone color reproduction. Our products also meet all the strictest guidelines regarding global restricted substances compliance. Our printers can have the confidence that Avient inks brands will achieve whatever compliance parameters requested by brands.”   

“Many of our customers print on to a multitude of fabrics, so they are looking for ink systems that can meet a variety of requirements,” said Arnold. “At Magna, we need to be able to offer a full suite of inks to garment printers to ensure that the full extremes of fabrics and printing conditions are covered, from standard cotton t-shirts, the blends, polyester where dye migration may be an issue, even durable water-repellent or DWR fabrics.

“For example, our high solids water-based ink MagnaPrint AquaFlex V2 be used on a multitude of fabric compositions,” he added. “It works in combination with our Migration Blocker underbase ink to prevent dye migration from polyester fabrics, and also in combination with our DWR Primer ink, which enables water-based screen printing onto water-repellent fabrics for the first time.

“Versatility of ink solutions is key to customers, and so is performance,” Arnold continued. “Our customers need inks with high wash durability, strong print opacity and vibrant colors, and excellent stretch and elasticity, especially when considering sportswear applications. Inks also need to be easy-to-use – so we’ve developed water-based formulations with excellent screen runnability and long open times, ready-to-use straight out of the tub.”

There are specific requirements for in-mold decoration.

“IMD/FIM ink systems must fulfill extreme requirements, such as adhesion to the film material, formability, resistance to thermal stress, and shearing during the injection moulding process,” Dr. Erfurt said. “Because of the necessary forming of printed film, highly flexible screen printing inks that adhere well to the film must be used for the in-mold decoration technique. Furthermore, the inks must be able to withstand the thermal load and shear applied during in-mold decoration, particularly when printing on the back of the film.”

The Screen Ink Market Outlook

Industry leaders in screen printing see many opportunities for the future, according to Screen Ink.

“Printed electronics in combination with film insert molding technology is right now at the starting point,” said Dr. Erfurt. “Several product applications for automotive interior and displays for white goods are in final development. 

“A further future screen printing application is the decoration of front modules of BEV,” added Dr. Erfurt. “The new front emblems/modules are decorated from the second surface of a film or plate substrate. Screen printing inks should not be conductive or IR/radar and/or lidar transparent. They must also be formable, back mouldable, and formable. A scratch-resistant front coating is required for the final piece. This coating cannot be applied to screen printing. In other printing sectors, user-friendly water-based inks for printing on glass, metals and various plastics are increasingly requested.”

“For mass market garment embellishment, screen printing will continue to be the leading printing process due to the advantages it offers to processor in terms of speed and scale,” Arnold reported. “DTG and hybrid printing technologies will grow in importance as brand and retailers offer greater customization and localized supply chains for consumers.

“We expect to see sustainability play an even bigger role in the screen printing ink market, with a greater focus circularity of resources, durable textiles, as well as key advances in bio-derived and biodegradable ink and pigment offerings,” Arnold concluded.

“We remain positive with growth in new technologies based on eco-conscious solutions – water-based, silicone, and non-PVC technologies will continue to garner interest.  Low cure plastisols will also become more prevalent in the years to come,” Echiburu noted. “We continue to focus our development on eco-conscious solutions. We believe this is helping printers cut down on their carbon footprint and reduce their waste. We look forward to launching these types of products and solutions in the years to come.”