3 minute read
A specialty chemicals supplier in the innovative and
Printing is one of the most fascinating ‒ and also challenging ‒ of all industries. Print meets a fundamental need to convey a message to a broad audience in the chosen form, whether this is a magazine, a book, a label, packaging material or any other printed product.
The printing industry, like many others, will emerge profoundly changed by the coronavirus pandemic, but this might not necessarily be all negative. It will certainly accelerate a digital transformation that was already foreseen and desired, and it will completely reinvent this industry.
We at SONGWON only recently started to look at the ink market from the specialty chemicals perspective. SONGWON has long been wellknown for producing additives such as antioxidants and light stabilizers for
the plastics industry, which supplies many of the substrates that end up being printed. A few years ago, having expanded its range to the development and manufacture of specialty chemicals, SONGWON started to supply products to ink formulators and was confronted with the challenges and requirements of different types of innovation.
The growth of technologies such as UV curing and digital and ink-jet printing brought significant opportunities for SONGWON products, for example photoinitiators for both UV stabilizers and antioxidants. These products are marketed under the brand names SONGSORB® CS and SONGCURE® CS. As a newcomer to these industries, it was important for SONGWON to involve the global application team and the R&D team of chemists to ensure development of the right sets of products to meet the needs of customers and the industry. Both teams are based in Maeam, South Korea, in close proximity to SONGWON’s largest production site for antioxidants and various specialties and near to some of the largest printing markets in the world. SONGWON has a global network of sales managers and distributors as well as regional warehouses, enabling it to supply the same products everywhere in the world. In a global industrial world, this has proven to be a very important part of the whole equation.
With strong expertise in light and thermal stabilization as well as in photo-curing, the SONGWON team can supply customers with the best product recommendations for their needs and formulation targets. Large
bulk and pilot production facilities allow SONGWON to respond increasingly to requests for customized products and to offer tailor-made solutions where specific limits apply to certain chemicals used in more demanding printing applications. Recently, company experts also developed a whole range of water-borne products for ink applications and successfully introduced the products in the market after an initial testing phase. These products are marketed under the brand name SONGSORB® CS WB.
Specialties or specialty chemicals such as the products mentioned above are clearly not familiar to the consumer world, but if thermal stability and weather fastness are incorporated in the final ink or adhesive formulation, this greatly helps to deliver the right messages in the printed product.
HI-THANE™ Innovative polyurethane ink binder solutions for printing inks
SONGWON is a leading specialist in ink binder technology for gravure and flexography printing inks used in flexible packaging laminates.
Our broad portfolio of HI-THANE™ polyurethanes enables us to design customized printing ink formulations.
Thanks to their excellent physical and technical properties, HI-THANE™ ink binders are widely used by printing ink manufacturers to produce high-quality print on plastic film packaging.
