Printing equipment and equipment industry 1.3

Section 3 Printing ink manufacturing

In ancient Chinese printing, water-based inks were used, and in modern times, printing was used as oily ink, and ink was commonly used. Like ink, ink is an important raw material for the printing industry. In the development of the modern printing equipment industry, printing ink manufacturing started later than machine manufacturing and paper making. In the 1930s, only some cities such as Shanghai, Tianjin, and Guangzhou had ink workshops. They were small in scale, semi-manual and semi-manual, and mainly produced black ink. Their output was also low. Because of its poor quality, it is unable to compete with foreign inks. The slightly advanced inks also rely on imports.

Ink Production Overview> I. Production of Ink

Since the early 1950s, under the influence of economic and cultural development, China's ink manufacturing industry has only embarked on the path of sustainable development.

1. Public-private partnerships and mergers in the 1950s

In 1949, there was only one state-owned ink factory, namely, the state-owned Tianjin Ink Factory (also known as the state-owned 545 factory) under the printing administration of the People's Bank of China. In 1957, the Tianjin Ink Factory was decentralized to the local government and changed to the local state-owned Tianjin ink factory. From 1943 to 1946, Tianjin has established private ink factories such as Zhihe, Daxing and Huabei. At the time of public-private partnership in 1956, a total of 8 private ink factories in Tianjin conducted public-private partnerships. In 1959, these 8 ink factories were also incorporated into the Tianjin ink factory and became the largest ink manufacturer in northern China, producing “Xiangyang”. "Printing inks (Figure 25-11).

Coloring book 25-11

In 1949, Shanghai had a total of more than 40 small-scale ink factories, all privately owned. With the restoration of the national economy, the revitalization of the printing industry has also driven the development of the ink manufacturing industry. By 1954, the ink industry in Shanghai had reached 64 at one time. Due to the blind start of private small-scale production, there has been a phenomenon of excess ink production. Those small factories with poor conditions and poor products had to close down, leaving 56 companies. In 1954, Shanghai's ink production was only 2002.9 tons. Most of the factories are less than 10, and only slightly older are only 20 or 30. The scale is too small to be developed. Under the leadership of the government's competent department, 56 ink factories were merged into six ink center factories, including Gongsheng, Sanxing, Lifeng, Tongwen, Wanxing and Dalong. After the public-private partnership in 1956, to support the development of the ink industry in other places, the Dalai ink factory was relocated to Hangzhou, Zhejiang, and another great ink factory was relocated to Tonghua, Jilin. In June 1958, six ink center factories further merged to establish the Shanghai Ink Factory. The factory was located at the site of the former Gongsheng Ink Factory, No. 305, Liuying Road, Shanghai. There were 678 employees in the entire factory, and the production of ink products unifiedly used the peony brand. trademark.

In Guangzhou City, in the early 1950s, there were several private small-scale ink manufacturing plants at Resurrection, Lunxing, Xintai, Minfeng, and Universal Ink Factory relocated from Shanghai to Guangzhou. After a public-private partnership in 1956, they merged to form a Guangzhou ink factory in 1957. .

Beijing also had several private ink factories. In 1956, when the entire industry was public-private partnership, it was incorporated into a joint public-private joint ink factory. In April 1958, it was incorporated into the Beijing Paint Factory.

In 1958, when the first National Ink Conference was held in Tianjin, there were a total of 15 attendees and an annual output of 10,000 tons of ink.

2. Further development of ink manufacturing

The ink manufacturing industry is driven by the printing industry. Since the 1960s, in order to meet the needs of the development of the printing industry, it has successively built a batch of medium-sized ink manufacturing plants. Such as Zhejiang Hangzhou Ink Factory, Jilin Tonghua Ink Factory, Shandong Jinan Ink Factory, Hunan Changsha Ink Factory. In the 1970s, Gansu Gangu Ink Factory was established. From the national point of view, the two old factories in Tianjin and Shanghai are large in scale. Apart from self-produced link materials, they also produce their own pigments and have strong capabilities in research and development of new products. The newly-established Gangu ink factory also has a certain scale, and consists of three professional inks, pigments, and electro-aluminum branches. By 1980, there were more than 20 ink manufacturers in the country with a total output of 21,600 tons, of which only Tianjin and Shanghai accounted for 50%. Annual output of 2000-5000 tons of ink factory in Hangzhou, Gan Valley 2. Annual output of 500 to 2,000 tons of Beijing, Taiyuan, Shenyang, Tonghua, Suzhou, Fuzhou, Jinan, Changsha, Guangzhou and other nine, the rest is an annual output of 500 tons of small factories. In 1984, the output reached 32,000 tons. By 1995, there were more than 100 ink manufacturers in the country, of which there were more than 20 in a certain scale and the annual output of ink reached 100,000 tons. The ink required by the printing industry in the country is basically self-sufficient, with a small amount of exports.

3. Chinese ink began to move toward the world

Since the 1980s, in the tide of reform and opening up, there has been a new development in the ink manufacturing industry. This kind of development is not only reflected in the increase in output, but more importantly, the increase in color varieties and quality. In the early 1950s, only low-grade black inks could be produced. After the public-private partnership in 1956, the scale of production expanded, and the variety of colors increased correspondingly. In 1957 there was a small amount of exports. From the 60th to the 1970s, due to the influence of the "Cultural Revolution", the development of color varieties was slow. After the 1980s, high-grade resin inks were the mainstay, and the export volume increased year by year. In 1985, the export volume was 1,090 tons, and 1,430 tons in 1986. By 1987, the export volume reached 2,000 tons. Products are mainly sold to North Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Africa and the United States.

In 1988, Tianjin Ink Factory was renamed as Tianjin Ink Company and produced "Tian Nv" printing ink. In 1993, Tianjin Ink Company and Japan’s Toyo Ink Manufacturing Co., Ltd. jointly established a large-scale Chinese ink manufacturer, Tianjin Toyo Ink Co., Ltd., to produce “Tianshi Brand” inks, which are sold not only for domestic sales but also to foreign countries and 51 countries. area.

Advances in Ink Manufacturing Technology> II. Advances in Ink Manufacturing Technology

The ink is formed by repeatedly rolling the pigment, the binder and other auxiliary materials after mixing. The progress of ink manufacturing technology is mainly reflected in the progress of pigments, binders and rolling processes. In view of the backwardness of ink products in the 1950s, ink producers put forward the slogan of "ink resinization, pigment organicization, and product gentrification."

1. The progress of pigment manufacturing technology

People are used to classify pigments into inorganic pigments and organic pigments, inorganic pigments such as chrome yellow, iron blue, carbon black, and the like. The different colors of the ink are completely determined by different pigments. As the manufacturing technology of pigments is highly specialized and difficult, especially the manufacture of organic pigments is more complicated, so most of the medium and small-sized ink factories generally use out-of-purchase pigments to make their own oil-refining and rolling inks.

Before the 1956 public-private partnership, many small-scale ink factories produced low-grade inks and even did not produce linking materials. They purchased pigments and binders and sold them on rolling packaging.

In the 1950s, the amount of color printing was still relatively small. Among the pigments used for ink production, carbon black was the most consumed. The process for producing carbon black has different methods such as a furnace method and a tank method, and the furnace process is relatively old. After the 1960s, aniline black organic black pigments were developed. Aniline black is mixed with carbon black to improve the quality of black ink. In order to improve the blackness of black ink, in the 1990s, the Wuhan Carbon Black Plant cooperated with the Tianjin Ink Factory to solve the problem of the quality of furnace black and improve the blackness of black ink.

The traditional yellow pigment in the color pigment is the inorganic pigment chrome yellow, and the cyan pigment is the inorganic pigment iron blue. Although inorganic pigments have the advantages of mature manufacturing process and low price, they have poor transparency and poor quality and heavy particle dispersion, which affects the printing quality. In particular, lead yellow chromate, which is a heavy metal, is harmful to human health. Since the 1960s, with the advancement of color printing technology, the pigments of color inks have also gradually become organic, which has greatly improved the color performance of yellow, magenta, and blue three-color inks. An example of the important effect of the organicization of color pigments on the improvement of the printing process is color lithography. Prior to the 1970s, most of the three-primary yellow ink pigments used chrome yellow as the inorganic pigment. Due to the poor transparency of the chrome yellow, the yellow printing was always arranged in the first printing color during the four-color printing. Since the use of organic pigments, since the transparency of organic yellow is very good, yellow is placed in the third color sequence superimposition, thereby improving the effect of color synthesis of three-color printing, and improving the quality of color printing.

2. The progress of linking material manufacturing technology

The binder is the dispersion medium of the pigment in the ink and the carrier of the pigment. For the offset ink, the binder is the film-forming substance after the printing ink is fixed. Apart from the fact that the color of the printing ink is determined by the pigment, other properties, such as fluidity, viscosity, drying speed, brightness, and so on, are mainly determined by the binder, so the performance of the binder is largely to a large extent. Determine the printing performance of the ink.

In the fifties, offset printing inks produced by various ink factories were all made of refined linseed oil as the linking material, transferred into inorganic pigments, and rolled into polymeric oil-type printing inks. Because this type of ink oxidative fixation speed is too slow, the coloring power is low, and it is easy to emulsify, seriously affecting the quality of the lithography.

In 1961, the Tianjin Ink Factory cooperated with three ink companies in Shanghai and Guangzhou to develop a resin-based lithographic ink. After the mid-sixties, Tianjin, Shanghai, Hangzhou and other ink companies have successively put into production resin-type lithography inks. Since then, the ink factory has suspended the production of polymeric oil binders and replaced them with resin-based binders. In order to meet the needs of the development of high-speed, multi-color continuous overprint technology, the two ink companies in Tianjin and Shanghai based on resin-based offset printing inks, respectively put into operation in the late seventies the resin type printing bright fast drying Ink.

The development of printing technology has continuously raised new issues for the ink-making industry; the development of new ink products has also created conditions for the advancement of printing technology. In 1976, Shanghai Ink Factory cooperated with the domestic color wheel transfer press to produce a set of non-heat-curing four-color ink for printing color newspapers.

Since the 1980s, as printing technology continues to extend to other industries, ink manufacturers have also expanded the scope of ink applications. In addition to traditional printing, such as electrophotographic toner for office printing, toner for laser printers, ink for inkjet printing, sublimation inks for transfer printing in the printing and dyeing industry, ink for printed circuit boards, and solder resist inks, etc. Ink dispersion media and linking materials are no longer the original concept of "oil", some oil, some resin, some solvents, some water and so on. The numerous members in the ink family not only display the prosperity of the ink manufacturing industry, but also illustrate the diversity of printing technologies from another perspective.

Variety and distribution of inks> Third, ink types and distribution

The extent of ink species reflects to some extent the level of ink manufacturing