Baldwin Technology helps A & R Carton eliminate alcohol
8/16/2007
Baldwin Technology helps A & R Carton eliminate alcohol
Baldwin Technology has played a leading role in helping one of the German subsidiaries of packaging printer A & R Carton to eliminate the use of alcohol on its six-colour KBA Rapida 142. The sheet-fed press was already equipped with Baldwin’s CombiLiner unit, which prepares, circulates and cools the dampening solution, and Baldwin has now installed its Performance Filtration system. During printing the system efficiently removes pollutants that contaminate the dampening solution and affect the ability to produce consistent high print quality.
A & R Carton, which has one of its factories in Königsbrunn, near Augsburg, has been working towards the elimination of isopropanol on the Rapida for several years, as part of its philosophy to minimise waste and environmental impact, as well as improving the working conditions of employees. Its efforts have resulted in several accreditations for good environmental management of processes.
This particular project has been monitored closely by the company. In 1987 the consumption of isopropanol on its three offset presses reached a combined total of 80,000 litres for the year. This figure was initially reduced following a concerted effort by all of the employees involved. An important industry development towards the end of the nineties was the introduction of objective measuring technologies for determining the actual alcohol content of the dampening solution, which avoided the problem of over-dosing.
Systems such as Baldwin’s IpaSonic enabled printers like A & R Carton to determine the proportion of isopropanol by means of an ultrasonic measuring technique, which overcame the danger of salts and solid matter in the dampening solution resulting in an inaccurately low reading of alcohol – a common problem with many systems. A & R Carton continued with its quest and by 2004 was experimenting with the alcohol substitute AlkoGreen.
At the beginning of the project the company was operating with partially hardened mains water although it reports that this was inadequate and so invested in a central water processing plant, which provided fully demineralised water. When this water was used for the dampening solutions on its offset presses, a hardening constituent was added via the CombiLiner unit, which had a highly accurate metering facility fitted for the purpose. This meant that the demineralised water had a dampening solution additive, alcohol substitute and hardening constituent incorporated. However, the finer tolerances that need to be adhered to with alcohol-free printing meant that contamination of the dampening solution during printing by paper fibres, ink particles, dust and other impurities led to variations in print quality.
The answer came in the form of Baldwin’s new Performance Filtration system, which automatically and continually removes a proportion of the dampening solution during production and pumps it through a series of highly efficient filter elements. These are contained within a cylindrical housing and consist of stacks of different filter discs, with varying characteristics suitable for particle and proportional micro filtration. The stacking principle results in a very large filter surface area, as well as prolonging the efficiency and durability of the filters.
Since the installation of the Performance Filtration system A & R Carton says it achieves the same life expectancy of the dampening solution as it did when using isopropanol, at around six weeks. Other benefits of the new Baldwin system include the extremely low maintenance requirements. The only intervention needed by the operator is to change the filters, which the German printer says it does within a few minutes once every two months.
The Königsbrunn site, which concentrates on the tobacco and food sectors, employs around 250 people and operates three gravure presses in addition to two large format sheet-fed presses (the second being a six-colour Planeta). Last year the factory produced more than three billion cartons of which 900 million items were printed on the offset machines. Most of the work printed sheet-fed is on stock between 180 and 400 gsm, with average runs of 80,000. The plant is one of 14 factories within the A & R Carton group, operating across eight different European countries. The group specialises in the production of printed folding carton packaging and has its headquarters in Sweden.
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