COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SID AND INK TRAPPING IN VIRGIN AND RECYCLED PAPER USING UV INKJET PRINTING

Abstract

This study investigates how virgin paper and recycled paper affect the quality of prints by comparing the Solid Ink Density (SID) and Ink Trapping values using the cyan, magenta, yellow and black (CMYK) inks in UV inkjet printing. Virgin and recycled paper are used for the study that has same grammage of 80 GSM, but they have different fillers contents in them. Spectrophotometer is used to take measurements at room temperature condition. The results indicate that recycled paper produced higher SID values, this can be due to increased porosity and higher ink absorption which allows more ink to be absorbed in recycled paper, whereas the virgin paper achieved slightly greater Ink Trapping performance because of uniform surface structure and superior ink holdout properties of virgin paper. Overall, the prints on recycled paper are darker and more saturated, while those on virgin paper provided better colour reproduction and better colour strength. The differences between the two substrates were relatively small and fell within acceptable tolerance.