Surface and porous structure of pigment coatings Interactions with flexographic ink and effects on print quality

Abstract: Each day, we are confronted with a large amount of more or less important information that we have to consider, and even in our digital society we need paper for communication, documentation and education. Much of the paper we use or are confronted by in our daily life, such as newspapers, books and packages, contains printed images or texts, and the appearance of both the print and the supporting surface is important. A good contrast between a printed text and the paper makes it easier to read, a detailed print of an illustration makes it more informative, and clear and evenly distributed colours on a package or on a poster make it more appealing. All of these qualities depend on the optical properties of the paper product and the the behavior of light illuminating the different materials.The aim of the work described in this thesis is to characterize the structure of coatings and prints, and to validate models for the optical response and interaction of ink and coating based on optical measurements of physical samples. It is the interactions between the printing ink and the porous structure of the coating layers that are subject to investigation. Experiments have been employed to relate the physical conditions in a flexographic printing nip to the ink setting, affected by the physical and chemical properties of the coating, to the resulting optical response of the printed paperboard.