At FESPA 2015 Marabu presented its comprehensive portfolio of screen, digital, and pad printing inks and liquid coatings. The widespread printing know-how enabled the ink manufacturer to perform as a high-requested partner for industrial and graphical applications.

Marabu’s booth at FESPA 2015 offered the full range, showing screen, digital, and pad printing applications as well as UV-curable and water-based liquid coatings like the new Mara® Shield WA-FXG. There was a strong demand for glass applications, container printing, industrial printing applications for automotive, touch panels and 3C as well as textile printing. One highlight for graphical digital printing was the new Mara® Jet DI-SX Plug&Print inkjet ink for Roland printers.

To achieve high-gloss gold and silver effects, Marabu presented an attractive alternative to energy-intensive and costly ceramic inks: hot stamping with UV inks. The required image or text is screen-printed onto the glass surface with Ultra Glass UVGL primer, serving as a type of cliche for the hot foil.

When it comes to glass decoration, another long runner was the Mara® Glass MGL solvent-based screen printing ink and its pad printing counterpart Tampa® Glass TPGL. MGL is ideal for high-gloss results on flat glass. Durable TPGL ink is suitable for a variety of tasks, and performs especially well on rounded objects such as small glass jars for cosmetics.

For Fespa visitors who were interested in digital glass printing, the combination of Mara® Shield liquid coatings and digital inks was highly attractive. When applied as a primer, Mara® Shield UV-PGL can be used as a bonding layer for the UV curable Ultra Jet inkjet series. Applications include custom-printed glass kitchen wall panels, photorealistic window surfaces, high-quality images and signs, and glass worktops. Inkjet printing directly onto PET or glass bottles opened the door to customized packaging designs. Depending on system configuration, it is possible to complete smaller custom jobs or large-volume production runs at very high speeds.

At the Marabu booth high-quality packaging printing samples drew attention just like the new Ultra Pack LEDC, a LED-curable screen printing ink which delivers excellent results in terms of adhesion, opacity, degree of gloss, and reactivity. It is suitable for container printing and flatbed label applications. The good opacity works especially for full area prints or text.

Eye-catching optical matt and gloss effects were demonstrated by the new hybrid coating Mara® Cure HY, a deformable, abrasion-resistant and chemical-resistant Dual-Cure screen print varnish which can be used as surface protection or as a so-called “Hard Coat” for films made of PC, PMMA, or ABS which are susceptible to abrasion. It is especially suited for all IMD (In-Mould Decoration) or FIM (Film Insert Molding) process steps where high temperature resistance and flexibility is required, while the finished product must feature highest mechanical and chemical resistance.

Using the varnish, different degrees of gloss are possible. The glossy varnish can be used for glossy effects on matt surfaces, or vice versa, create matt effects on glossy surfaces with the satin transparent varnish. The hybrid coating is particularly suitable for indoor and outdoor industrial applications such as interior and exterior applications in the automotive segment or furniture.

Water-based digital textile printing inks generated great demand, like the versatile Texa® Jet DX range. The hybrid sublimation ink Texa® Jet DX-SHE is suitable for traditional transfer printing as well as for direct printing onto pre-treated polyester fabrics. Its full colour brilliance can be achieved on machines with Epson DX4 and DX5 print heads. Especially for transfer printing and optimized for Epson DX6 and DX7 print heads, Marabu has developed Texa® Jet DX-STE, which is ideal for printing on very thin paper.

The use of label-free printing is an interesting application especially for manufacturers of sportswear. Marabu displayed its Tampa® Tex TPX pad printing ink which is certified according to Oeko-Tex® Standard 100. The direct printing of size specifications, washing instructions or logos onto textiles with Tampa® Tex TPX keeps up the wearing comfort because no sew-in labels are necessary.

In the field of graphical digital printing, Marabu presented its new solvent-based Mara® Jet DI-SX Plug&Print inkjet ink for the EcoSolMax 2 generation of Roland printers. The high-grade pigmented ink system provides a nickel-free yellow, Light Black, and many different silver, gold, bronze and other pearlescent metallic effects. The fast drying DI-SX is perfectly suited for fast printing speeds and roll-to-roll print jobs.

As a part of the graphical digital printing area Marabu highlighted the Mara® Shield product range, comprising UV-curable and water-based liquid laminates. Mara® Shield liquid coatings can be used as primers, for finishing, as a protective coating for high-quality digital prints, or for colouring large glass surfaces. In Cologne, the focus was on the glossy, water-based Mara® Shield WA-FXG liquid coatings, which is especially suited for coating inkjet prints on flexible substrates like fleet graphics and self-adhesive foils. Mara® Shield WA-FXG can either be applied automatically by Roller Coater or manually using a roller, spray gun, or other applicators.