There are so many tech advancements today, that we sometimes yawn and give it a “That’s cool.” But if you’re in to printing, then Landa Corporation’s invention of Nanography and the presses rolled out at drupa, should get more than a passing mention.
Landa unveiled a complete family of sheetfed and web presses at drupa. The announcements of licensing partnerships with Komori, Heidelberg and Manroland quickly followed.
So why is this something you need to know?
At the heart of the Nanographic printing process is the water-based Landa NanoInk. (That’s water-based inks in an offset environment – never done before.) The ink is comprised of pigment particles only tens of nanometers in size (a human hair is about 100,000 nanometers wide). These nano-pigments are extremely powerful absorbers of light and enable unprecedented image qualities.
According to Landa, nanography is characterized by ultra-sharp dots of extremely high uniformity, high gloss fidelity and the broadest CMYK color gamut of any printing process.
During the printing process, the water is removed from the ink before the ink hits the paper, which means no typical post-drying. In addition, no organic solvents are used, which is better for the environment.
Nanography also creates images of remarkable abrasion and scratch resistance. Most remarkable, it can print on any off-the-shelf substrate, from coated and uncoated paper stocks to recycled carton, from newsprint to plastic packaging films – all without requiring any kind of pre-treatment or special coating.
Presses are expected to hit printers’ floors by the end of next year.
To hear from the creator himself, we recommend watching this video at WhatTheyThink.com. A little techie, but worth it. Note the front of the press visible in the video (just behind the speakers). Yep, the user interface looks and acts a lot like a smartphone.
