Development of Solvent-Based White Ink by Mixture Design of Experiment

Abstract

Solvent-based inks are considered as an important cost in the production of flexible packaging. They are used for printing on film to create colors that will result in beautiful packaging, which can draw the attention from consumers. The ink with the highest usage in the printing factory for flexible packaging is the white ink, which is mainly composed of the titanium dioxide. This component can increase the cost of production for ink manufacturers due to the high price of titanium dioxide.  This cause the ink makers try to find alternative raw materials to replace or to reduce using the titanium dioxide. The important properties of white ink, such as opacity, solid content, and bonding strength were considered in this study. These properties, if we can control them, can help ink makers to reduce the cost of printing ink production. In this research, the use of mixture experimental design was used in order to find the optimal properties of printing ink by studying on the three factors of a binders (X₁), colorant (X₂), and extender (X₃). The objective is to determine the significant effects of a solid content (Y₁) and an opacity (Y₂) as responses on polyethylene terephthalate film. The results showed that all three factors affect both responses. A mixture mathematical model by D-Optimal mode is used to analyze both performances. The confirmation from the experiment showed that the proper levels to responses of a solid content and an opacity of the mixtures on a binders colorant as titanium dioxide: extender as BaSO₄ was 30: 27.5: 12.5, respectively.