Three new Sun Chemical inks to make Fespa debuts

Sun Chemical will debut new products in its graphics, industrial and digital textiles portfolios when it returns to Fespa next month.

With a broad collection of products on show at stand D20, hall 2.2 in the Berlin Messe, the US-headquartered ink manufacturer will be showcasing three products at the show for the very first time.

Streamline UML, Sun Chemical’s latest ink series for wide-format, will be demonstrated live on a Mutoh printer, while Sonata DTR500, an ink developed for Ricoh Gen 5 printheads, and SunMotion, which the company said is “a viable alternative to backlit signage and LCD displays”, will also be presented on the company’s stand.

“As one of the world’s leading suppliers of ink, Sun Chemical is looking at Fespa 2018 to engage with customers and potential customers operating in the graphics, industrial and textile markets and to demonstrate to them the value we can offer their businesses,” said managing director in charge of advanced materials, liquid compounds John Law.

“We believe we’ll have something of interest to every visitor to Fespa 2018, whether the focus of the customer is on the graphics, textile or industrial printing market.

“Not only do we have a vast array of high-quality inks and associated technologies, but we also offer our customers comprehensive service and engineering support packages to ensure that they are able to extract the maximum value from our products.”

Streamline UML will be available to UK customers from the first day of Fespa, with prices subject to the packages agreed between Sun Chemical and the customer. It is designed especially for eco-solvent applications such as graphics, signage, vehicle graphics and POS.

It is positioned as a drop-in replacement for the Mutoh UMS CMYK series as the two products are colour-matched, so printers do not need to be re-profiled.

Sonata DTR500, making its show debut at Fespa, is already available in the UK and is aimed at entry-level, super-wide dye-sublimation work for high-volume production, such as 'fast fashion' clothing items.

A CMYK ink family initially, the product is available with stronger cyan and deeper black options for use with lightweight transfer papers. Sun said it had been "fully stress-tested" to optimise it for high-volume and high-speed work.

SunMotion was described by Law as a “low-cost visual display system which simulates motion”. Applications see the product, a series of invisible inks, printed on plastic substrates with multiple images layered on top of one another. Layer edges can then be sequentially illuminated in order to alternate between the images, of which up to three can be layered.

Sun Chemical's inkjet brand SunJet will also appear on the Partnerships & Technology area of the company's Fespa stand. Here it will showcase a number of development projects conducted with OEM partners, as well as Separel – a hollow fibre technology for degassing inkjet ink.

Fespa 2018 takes place in Berlin from 15-18 May.