DEINKABILITY OF INKJET PRINTS: IS IT AN ISSUE?, 2010 TAPPI PEERS Conference

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In the fast-growing digital printing market, a noteworthy development is the introduction of commercial inkjet web presses for on-demand newspapers and for a variety of publications and business forms. Despite the enthusiasm brought about by these new inkjet technologies, a number of deinking studies carried out in Europe have raised serious issues on the deinkability of inkjet prints. The validity of these conclusions is questioned by some representatives of the digital printing industry. To clarify this matter, deinkability tests were carried out with different ratios of inkjet printed newsprint at alkaline and near-neutral deinking chemistries, with fresh and aged papers. A representative pigmented inkjet formulation was used for the deinking tests. Well-proven protocols were used to follow the fate of ink in pulping, flotation and thickening. Under these conditions, our results are similar to those obtained by European researchers. Pigmented inkjet inks do not have the physicochemical attributes to be effectively collected by air bubbles during flotation. Causes for this poor deinkability of inkjet inks are discussed as well as the potential means to enhance their deinkabilit