Overview of the lamination process

Films, also known as "plastic", "silk", "film," etc., belong to a major process of post-press processing. It refers to the transparent plastic film applied to the surface of the print by hot pressing to form a 10 to 20 um film, which plays a role in protecting the printed product and increasing the gloss of the printed product. It is widely used for the surface decoration and protection of books and magazine covers, albums, commemorative albums, postcards, product brochures, calendars, and maps.
Lamination technology was born in the 1950s and was first adopted by the U.S. Army. China's laminating technology was inspired by the Japanese calendar card in the mid-1960s, and it was successfully tested on printed matter and soon became widely used.

Film coating process is mainly divided into two kinds of semi-automatic operation and fully automatic operation. Although semi-automatic and fully automatic are somewhat different in terms of specific operations, the principle is the same: the adhesive is first coated on a plastic film by a roller coating device, heated by a hot-pressing roller to soften the film, and then coated. The printed material of the primer and the film are pressed together to form a film-plastic product.

The film coating process can be divided into a coating film process and a precoat film process depending on the raw materials and equipment used. The two main processes are: solventless hot melt adhesive precoating film dry composite process and emulsion adhesive wet coating composite process. Solventless hot melt adhesive precoating film dry compounding has simplified the compound production process into a single hot press, which is widely used in China. The core technology of the emulsion-type adhesive wet-coating composite process is mainly embodied in coating, cold pressing, and drying. The difference between them is that the coating type is directly after the adhesive is coated. The two pre-coated types are dried after the adhesive is coated and hot pressed.

Before 1995, the domestic coating type laminating machine had only the oily laminating machine. The adhesive used in the machine contained volatile organic substances such as toluene and thinner, which caused some harm to the human body and polluted the environment. The film needs to be dried and applied with high pressure, so it has high power consumption, low efficiency, and a high risk factor. With the increasing popularity of green environmental protection, in May 1996, the water-based film began to attract people's attention. Yutian County Shengtian Printing and Packaging Machinery Co., Ltd. meets the needs of environmental protection, timely developed SFl020 automatic water-based laminating machine, and soon The original direct printing, printing. The successful development of the domestic water laminating machine opened a new page in the history of Chinese laminating technology and ended the history of the water laminating machine completely relying on imports.