Domino Printing Sciences (Domino) has launched its Cx350i, a new sustainably designed piezo inkjet solution for printing on secondary packaging. 

“We recognize that sustainable production cannot be achieved in isolation,” says David Edwards, product manager – PIJ at Domino. “Product coding and marking is an integral part of all global supply chains – and as such we have an ambition and a responsibility to our customers, and to the world in general, to ensure that our products are consciously designed to minimize their environmental impact.” 

“The Cx350i has been designed with these ambitions and responsibilities in mind — it offers our customers a sustainable solution for direct printing on boxes and sets a new standard for product development at Domino,” continues Edwards. “The printer is optimized to ensure maximum code quality with minimal ink usage and has been designed to work exclusively with low-impact vegetable-oil-based printing inks – the result is sustainable printing without compromising on quality.” 

Improved Print Quality Using Less Ink 

Domino says the Cx350i has been optimized to achieve a 33% reduction in ink usage for barcodes printed at 200 dpi when compared with Domino’s previous generation secondary packaging printers. As barcode quality is a top priority for manufacturers when printing on boxes, Domino says it has worked to develop a solution that matches the resolution of previous generation coders but delivers a far superior code in terms of print quality. 

“While resolution relates only to the number of ink dots per inch, overall print quality is also determined by ink drop size, drop placement, and the ink itself,” says Edwards. “With the Cx350i we worked to optimize all the factors which influence print quality — improved drop size and ink placement — and new and improved inks have allowed us to reduce the overall quantity of ink needed to produce high-quality codes time after time.”

In addition, the Cx350i requires less frequent purging than previous piezo inkjet printers, which further reduces ink waste. The printer also offers flexibility with respect to printer settings, with options to further reduce ink usage dependent on specific customer requirements. Customers can choose from a range of text fonts and sizes and have the ability to manually reduce ink drop size. 

Sustainable Vegetable-Oil-Based Printing Inks

The Cx350i utilizes exclusively sustainable vegetable-oil-based printing inks, specifically developed to aid in the safe recycling of cardboard packaging. With global demand for recycled cardboard increasing year on year, the company says it is imperative that the industry move away from the use of mineral-oil-based solutions, which contribute to a rise in harmful mineral-oil concentration in recycled pulp products. 

Domino says it supports a move away from mineral-oil-based inks and, as such, is investing in sustainable alternatives to mineral oils, including vegetable-oil-based solutions, for all current and future product development. The new vegetable-oil-based printing inks for the Cx350i comply with current proposals for mineral oil regulations outlined by the German Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture. 

Vegetable-oil-based printing inks are also less polluting than mineral oils — with a reduced volatile organic compound (VOC) content. VOCs are polluting gases that can affect indoor air quality, and also contribute to the formation of ground-level ozone and methane. With less than 10% VOC content Domino’s new inks are considered low-VOC and represent a 70% reduction in VOC content compared with previous mineral-oil-based solutions.