Chris will be presenting the Inkjet Ink Manufacturing course on the 3rd-4th July at the IMI Europe Inkjet Summer School, which runs from 1st-5th July. Further details about the course can be found on the IMI website (https://imieurope.com) and below.

Course focus

This course is designed for those wishing to develop or source inkjet inks, or you are 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.

The course is run in association with IMI conferences in Europe, the USA and Asia.

Course outline

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

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

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
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