Marabu and Durst develop solutions for digitial printing onto Melamine

Both with varying degrees of gloss that are eco-compatible and enable users to print on melamine-coated panels like Resopal or Max.

These developments have provided access to new and creative fields of application for interior decoration and furniture and kitchen manufacture.

Chipboard panels with laminated melamine surfaces are used to make the Resopal, Max and Funder utilised for kitchen and office cabinets and partitions, as well as other kinds of furniture. However, due to their low surface tension, printing on these finished panels poses problems of scarce ink adherence and low scratch resistance.

The Marashield UV-PMM primer is applied with a roller coater in a layer of about 15 microns, gave printing with Rho Rigid Ink a rating of 0 to 1 on the basis of checkering tests. The Marashield UV RCG (Gloss), UV RCS (Semi-Gloss) and UV RCM (Opaque) protective varnishes gave the prints extreme hardness between 8 and 15 N, compared to the 2 to 5 N without the varnish, measured with the SP 0010 TQC device for hardness tests.

The abrasion tests done automatically with an Elcometer 1720 abrasion tester (500 cycles) showed good resistance to abrasion, water, diluted watery solutions and n-heptane, and limited resistance to ethanol and acetone. Resistance to steam and big changes in temperature was also good, respecting Austrian standards Ö-Normen A 1605-12 part 12 and
Ö-Normen 12720 and 12721.

Photo Electronic Services
www.photoelectronic.com.au