From the Sector

• EFI Reggiani TERRA Silver Makes Debut at Fespa Global Print Expo 2021 for a Short, Smart and Green Process
• The new, industrial, entry-level EFI™ Reggiani TERRA Silver textile printer from Electronics For Imaging, Inc. is making its debut at the Fespa Global Print Expo 2021 tradeshow, 12-15 October at RAI Amsterdam.
• The EFI Reggiani TERRA Silver uses unique TERRA pigment ink for high-quality, highly sustainable direct-to-textile printing without steaming or washing.       

“This is one of the first trade shows to return after the pandemic, and we are very excited to again meet customers in person and showcase an innovative offering that delivers superior printing results while using less time, water and energy,” said EFI Reggiani Vice President and General Manager Adele Genoni. “We are introducing this advanced EFI Reggiani TERRA Silver solution to the many print service providers at Fespa, presenting them with an ideal path to enter the industrial textile segment with a short, smart and green production process.”

The new-version TERRA Silver printer is part of EFI’s complete TERRA line-up of pigment ink printer solutions. It is a 180-cm wide printer that can print up to 190 sqm per hour with eight dual-channel printheads. The printer also features:

•    A new recirculating ink system for superior reliability and minimum maintenance
•    Several printing modes to ensure maximum flexibility in terms of design capability
•    New, real-time image processing that eliminates time spent in image pre-calculations
•    A user friendly, intuitive interface
•    A more-efficient polymerisation process that takes place as printed textile goes through the printer’s on-board dryer.

In Fespa stand 1-G71, attendees can see the EFI Reggiani TERRA Silver print smoothly and precisely on knitted and woven fabrics. The printer’s quality is evident in its high-uniformity printing modes, and it delivers numerous features that enhance the production process, including an accurate WYSIWYG interface and flexible queue management.
 
EFI Reggiani is also a leading developer of textile inks. The EFI Reggiani TERRA pigment inks used on the Silver model deliver excellent wet and dry fastness properties and remarkable sharpness in detail. Designed to leverage EFI Reggiani digital printers’ market-proven industrial performance capabilities, these eco-friendly, water-based inks provide an extraordinary level of print durability and yield longer print head life with reduced maintenance costs. The high-performance digital pigment inks also use an innovative binder technology for fast, sustainable, and cost-competitive industrial textile printing on the widest range of fabrics. Users also gain superior print definition and colour intensity.
 
This year, EFI Reggiani celebrates 75 years of heritage and innovation in the textile world. Always committed to deliver to the market new cutting-edge technologies, EFI Reggiani has world-class products offering boosted uptime and reliability, high performance throughput, and remarkable printing uniformity and accuracy – all while helping customers increase the sustainability of their textile manufacturing activities. Green EFI Reggiani processes give users fast, complete and sustainable solutions across a broad range of textile applications.
 
In this 75th anniversary year, EFI Reggiani has also launched several other ground-breaking solutions, such as EFI Reggiani HYPER, the fastest scanning digital printer on the market, and the EFI Reggiani BLAZE, an industrial entry-level, easy-to-use printer designed to give new textile companies the opportunity to adopt digital inkjet production with a compact solution to blaze a successful path into the industry.

Kornit Digital announced that the London-based LOVE HERO fashion label uses Kornit’s sustainable, digitized, on-demand production capabilities to deliver its complete line of nature-themed apparel.

All fabrics are traceable and certified via their blockchain platform, Retraced, to minimize their eco footprint. Cut-and-sew operations take place in Portugal.

LOVE HERO is currently engaged with Kornit on the mechanics of imprinting silk, biodegradable nylon, and other diverse materials. One such application involves two-sided fabrics—nylon on top, with cotton on the reverse.

“Kornit is committed to becoming the operating system for sustainable fashion fulfillment, on demand,” says Chris Govier, KDEU Managing Director. “With visionary creators like Joshua and LOVE HERO ready to test the bounds of our design and color capabilities, and our growing network of digitized producers ready to make those visions tangible with speed, economy, and quality from all corners of the globe, we’re changing the public percetion of what digital can do—meeting the global sustainability imperative, without demanding compromise from any actor in that value chain.”

• New HYPER model produces extraordinary printing quality at unparalleled speed, approaching single-pass throughput

Electronics For Imaging, Inc. is launching its third new digital textile printer of 2021, delivering the world’s highest real production throughput for a scanning digital textile printer. The EFI™ Reggiani HYPER is a scanning printer available in 1.8-metre, 2.4-metre or 3.4-metre widths. With an up to eight-colour configuration, the EFI Reggiani HYPER prints at up to 13 linear metres per minute in two-pass production mode, making it the fastest textile scanning printer on the market. The new printer is suitable for high-quality production on knitted or woven fabrics and is designed with smart technology that enables it to be integrated into Industry 4.0 projects.

The new EFI Reggiani HYPER targets the industrial high-speed segment of the multi-pass textile printing sector. Not only is it the fastest multi-pass printer that EFI Reggiani has ever developed, but the fastest of its kind in the market, offering extraordinary printing quality with unmatched productivity.
 
The HYPER’s superfast carriage with 72 printheads can print two passes with production quality at speeds up to 13 metres per minute for a 1.5-metre-wide roll, or up to 10 metres per minute for a 3-metre-wide roll. On a 3.4-metre Reggiani HYPER printer, users can print a pair of 1.5-metre-wide rolls in parallel, delivering a total throughput of up to 20 metres per minute, which is comparable to some single-pass printers currently in the market.
 
The printer is powered by EFI Reggiani genuine inks, with high-quality formulas developed to ensure the best performance in terms of runnability and longer printhead life while producing astonishing colour depth and brightness, as well as excellent fastness properties.       

The Turkish company ARIKAN Mensucat Industry and Trade Inc. was founded in 1993 and is located in Kahramanmaraş, one of the southernmost cities of the country. Today, the family-owned company employs around 1,500 people and finishes around 55 tons of knitwear every day. In addition to many well-known Turkish fashion manufacturers, ARIKAN also supplies international manufacturers in Europe, Russia, the Gulf States and other leading international markets.

The German machinery manufacturer BRÜCKNER supported the Turkish company from the very beginning. From the foundation of the dyeing and finishing plant, BRÜCKNER supplied three stenters for the finishing of the high-quality knitted fabric in 2014. Two more lines followed in 2016. For decades, BRÜCKNER has been the market leader for the finishing of knitted fabric. Especially for very fine and elastic fabric, special line configurations and technological know-how are necessary to be able to produce a high-quality end product. During the drying and heat-setting process, for example, extremely accurate and uniform temperature distribution over the entire length and width of the dryer is essential. In the BRÜCKNER stenter this is achieved, among other things, by the alternating arrangement of the thermal zones every 1.5 meters and by the proven split-flow air system.

The machine operators at ARIKAN appreciate the easy control of BRÜCKNER lines. The visualization is intuitively designed and offers many auxiliary systems for an optimized production process. In addition, significant energy savings can be achieved with just a few changes to the machine parameters.

The management at ARIKAN attaches great importance to energy saving, especially in the fabric finishing department. The drying process is one of the most energy-intensive in the entire process chain, therefore the biggest savings can be made here. These have a direct impact on the manufacturing costs of the textiles and thus on competitiveness in the market. In the meantime, talks are already in progress for another BRÜCKNER line which will include a very special feature: a combined heating system for the dryer. For many customers - and so also for ARIKAN in Turkey - e.g. steam energy is available free or very cheap. With the combined heating system developed by BRÜCKNER it is possible to use this steam energy for heating up the dryer and thus to achieve significant savings. If the available steam is not sufficient for a running process, it is automatically switched over to gas heating. This mode of operation does not only have an effect on the energy costs, but also makes a considerable contribution to environmental protection.

Fibre Extrusion Technology Ltd of Leeds, UK has installed a new meltspinning system to upgrade research facilities at NIRI, the Nonwovens Innovation & Research Institute Ltd UK, a global leader in nonwoven engineering and product development.

Established in 1998, FET is a leading supplier of laboratory and pilot meltspinning systems with installations in over 35 countries and has now successfully processed almost 30 different polymer types in multifilament, monofilament and nonwoven formats.
 
The installation comprises a FET-102 Series Laboratory Meltblown Spinning System and FET-103 Monofilament Meltspinning System. This advanced equipment enhances NIRI’s extensive pilot facilities and state-of-the-art analytical laboratory for fast tracking innovation. In particular, the FET meltblown system will be utilised for R&D, pilot projects, sampling and prototyping, proof of concept testing and for designing cost-effective, sustainable and innovative products.

NIRI supports global manufacturing companies to identify new opportunities for meltblown nonwovens, develop their next generation of products and accelerate their commercialisation activities. NIRI’s new upgraded laboratory and pilot system from FET can process a wide range of polymer types, including chemically recycled polymers, bio-polymers and many difficult-to-process materials.

Baldwin Technology Company Inc. will showcase a new generation of innovative technologies for optimized corrugated high-graphics package printing at SuperCorrExpo, taking place in Orlando, Florida, from Aug. 8 to 12.

The FlexoCleanerBrush™ enhances the print quality and improves worker safety in corrugated printing. The system automatically removes dust and contamination from the plate in seconds during production, without stopping the press. It also performs full end-of-job plate cleaning and drying in fewer than four minutes, enabling increased uptime and sustainability. A carbon fiber core keeps even the ultra-wide FlexoCleanerBrush to a minimal weight, and ensures cleaning is stable, uniform and consistent throughout the plate’s width. Because the system is fully automatic and spans the entire width of the plate cylinder, the FlexoCleanerBrush improves safety by eliminating routine operator contact with the machine, while also reducing the risk of cylinder nip injuries and contact with wash agents.

Also on view in Baldwin’s SuperCorrExpo booth, the FlexoDry™ is a fully integrated IR drying system, specifically developed for corrugated flexo printing presses. It reduces energy consumption by up to 30 percent over standard IR dryers through patented Diamond IR™ lamps. The system delivers improved drying results because of a unique optical design that produces higher intensity for enhanced color definition, and reduces or eliminates marking altogether, allowing for high-speed and full-confidence printing.

Additionally, Baldwin will showcase LED-UV technology, designed by its AMS Spectral UV division for wide-format flexo corrugated box printing.

The new, industrial, entry-level EFI™ Reggiani BLAZE scanning printer from Electronics For Imaging, Inc. is making its debut at the ITMA Asia tradeshow, 12-16 June in Shanghai, China. The high-quality printer is an easy-to-use, smart solution to help textile companies blaze their successful trail into the world of efficient, sustainable industrial inkjet printing. It is equipped with EFI Reggiani’s state-of-the-art technology, offering high quality, reliability and flexibility on the widest variety of designs.

Cutting-edge technology in a compact footprint
The EFI Reggiani BLAZE printer is designed to give textile companies the opportunity to enter the digital textile printing market with a compact solution. The new, 1.8-metre wide printer offers an innovative, low-maintenance, continuous recirculation ink system equipped with a level sensor and degassing as well as a printhead crash protective system for longer printhead life and superior uptime.
 
Thanks to its cutting-edge printhead reliability and low maintenance costs for a competitive TCO (total cost of ownership), the BLAZE printer can produce up to 125 linear metres per hour with a printing resolution up to 600x1200 dots per inch (dpi). The printer – which delivers excellent productivity as one of the fastest digital inkjet solutions in its class – has eight 300-dpi dual channel printheads and can print in up to eight colours with full variable drop size.

Flexible fabric feed and handling for higher productivity
The EFI Reggiani BLAZE is equipped with a continuous and switchable belt washing unit to remove water and fabric hairs. An embedded device for adhesive application offers the possibility to use thermoplastic, resin and permanent adhesives.
 
The printer also includes other features for enhanced productivity and value, including a 400-mm roll unwinder, expandable shafts, an air gun and a pneumatic bar for standard fabrics.

Efficient software and electronics technology
The Reggiani BLAZE printer offers a friendly and intuitive user interface with real-time image processing and flexible queue management. The software also runs a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) job editor, as well as tools to accurately predict printing speed and ink usage.

EFI Reggiani TERRA Silver enhancement
EFI has also released an enhanced version of the EFI Reggiani TERRA Silver printer, a 1.8-metre wide printer operating with EFI Reggiani’s unique TERRA pigment ink with binder solution for high-quality, highly sustainable, direct-to-textile printing without steaming or washing.

Features:

• A new recirculating ink system for superior reliability and minimum maintenance at start up and during production
• Several printing modes to ensure maximum flexibility in terms of design capability
• New, real-time image processing that eliminates time spent in image pre-calculations
• A user friendly, intuitive interface
• A more-efficient polymerisation process that takes place as printed textile goes through the printer’s on-board dryer.