Grafityp and Mutoh partner for world first

Grafityp (6-R30) has partnered with Mutoh (6-T30) to secure Eurofins Indoor Air Comfort (IAC) certification for a range of its films and Mutoh’s inks.

The two companies embarked on the joint project, which was revealed at Fespa, as a reaction to new European laws and regulations for the use of materials inside living and office environments.

The aim is to prevent air pollution from products, materials and decoration used indoors that could cause symptoms including worsening asthma, allergies, headaches, nausea, memory loss, dizziness and fatigue.

Grafityp sales and marketing manager Harald Jumelet said: “The moment you move indoors there is an extremely strong legislation for what is allowed and what is not allowed for VOCs.

"The issue is indoor air quality. People are spending more than 80% of their time indoors, not only at work but also living, but they want to have personalised walls and doors.”

Eurofins is an independent analytical testing organisation, which has more than 190 laboratories in 37 countries.

The certification highlights media and inks that show compliance with low VOC emissions criteria for the most relevant European specifications, including European REACH legislation, European directives and laws and national registrations and laws.

The awarded certification applies to Grafityp’s GEF-ES film non-printed, Mutoh’s Universal Mild Solvent (UMS) inks used for wide-format digital printing and Grafityp’s GEF-ES film printed with Mutoh UMS inks.

Grafityp’s GEF UV film non-printed received IAC Gold certification, which complies with all relevant European legislations as well as most of the voluntary labels on VOC emissions.

IAC certification is said to help to increase public trust in low emission statements and simplify the combination of the various specifications of different countries and labels into one certificate.

Grafityp and Mutoh said the certification would enable end-users to offer the “only official certified combined printed solution in the world”.

Jumelet said there has been no previous finished printed product on the market that has the IAC certified label because there has been “practically no partnership” between businesses along the production line of a final printed product before now.

“Some inks are certified but that does not mean that the end printed result is certified and that is the big issue here,” said Jumelet.

“Together with Mutoh we started to look at these new rules and legislation to see how to comply with it. We are the first two companies that put our heads together and strived for that result.”