Idvac Ltd., a UK vacuum R&D specialist, is introducing a new innovative product to the security, decorative, packaging, agriculture and solar market. The new product is a white metallised coating with good metallic reflection finish.
The process involved the utilisation of a special polymer which is transparent when applied on flexible films. However, the polymer changes its colour to white following vacuum metallizing with aluminium. The metallized aluminium can be applied using thermal evaporation or sputtering. The final product has a bright white metallised finish on front and back surfaces of the film. In this process no inks or dyes are used.
White coloured flexible films are usually manufactured using white dyes or inks in which titanium dioxide or other pigments are utilised. However, while this conventional manufacturing process uses a very efficient white pigment, it is not exactly the cheapest ingredient in a formulation. It is no surprise that there is great economic value to be derived from optimising its usage or to find alternative process. Also it is important to
know the differences between the various kinds of titanium dioxide or other pigments used in the market and the chemical formulas used to manufacture the final pigmented white films.
Idvac new development process represents a new approach to manufacture white metallized films without using expensive pigments or dyes. In this new process, the required combination of luster and opacity can be achieved by controlling the polymer thickness and metallized aluminium optical density (OD). This produce bright white metallized finish on both sides of the film. Flexible films such as PET, BOPP,
Polycarbonate (PC), etc. can be coated with this new white metallized finish.
Idvac polymer can be coated using standard coating machine such as gravure or flexo. Aluminiumn metallizing can be carried out in a standard R2R vacuum metallizes.
The main features of this new white metallised coating are:
1- No pigmented inks or dyes are used.
2- The process use environmentally friendly materials.
3- The polymer can be applied onto flexible films using conventional printing machines
such as gravure, flexo, etc.
4- Aluminium metallization is done inside standard vacuum R2R metallizers. No
modification required.
5- The white coating is thin and has smooth bright finish.
6- UV reflection at 300nm from metallized side is about 40-65% and can be adjusted to
lower or higher levels.
7- Visible light reflection in wavelength range of 400-800nm from the metallized side is
about 94%.
8- When applied onto BOPP film, the white metallised coating exhibit good oxygen (30- 40 cc/m2 .day) and water (<0.2 g/m2 .day) barriers.
9- The white metallized coating is adherent, stable and environmentally durable.
10- The white coating has good durability against dilute NaOH solution.
11- The white metallized surface is suitable for conventional solvent flexo and rotogravure printing applications.
12- The white metallized surface is electrically conductive.
Applications
1- The product can be used for hot stamping of security or non- security product such as labels.
2- The product can be used for normal and barrier packaging including pharmaceutical products.
3- The white metallised coating can be used for optical applications, e.g. to diffuse light.
4- The environmental and optical properties of the white metallized coating can be used
for outdoor agricultural films to protect crops or for solar window films.
5- Laminated white films can be used for car number plates.
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