Xeikon unveils new version of QA-I toner

Xeikon launched a new version of its QA-I toner in spot red and orange at Labelexpo Europe. The new spot colors feature an improved light fastness up to a level of six on the blue wool scale. Both colors now meet FDA food safety requirements for both direct and indirect dry food contact. 

Visitors to the Xeikon stand also saw the results of a recent light fastness benchmarking test. 

Xeikon launched the QA-I toner, developed for the label and packaging market, in 2010. The new toner featured advances in color gamut, fast lightness and food safety and was released in all the standard CMYK process colors along with a series of off-the-shelf spot colors – orange, green, red, blue, extra magenta, clear and white. At the time, the performance of spot orange and red lagged slightly behind the rest in light fastness and food safety. Since that initial release, the toner R&D group at Xeikon has continued to optimize the pigments used in the toner and have now lifted both colors up to be in line with the others. 

‘Red and orange are both used a lot in the chemical industry,’ said Filip Weymans, marketing and business development manager, labels and packaging, at Xeikon. ‘For example: warning signs placed on the outside of large drums carrying potentially dangerous contents typically use these two colors and they are often exposed to UV light for long periods of time. With the light fastness of both colors now lifted to six on the blue wool scale, labels created with QA-I toner can easier meet the demanding requirements of this market.’ 

The R&D team also focused on improving the food safety performance of the two QA-I spot colors. When first released, they met the FDA requirements for indirect food contact. By optimizing the color pigments, they now meet FDA requirement for both indirect and direct dry food contact. 

‘The raised performance of both light fastness and food safety of the two spot colors now enables label printers to broaden the range of applications they can offer,’ added Weymans. 

Visitors to Labelexpo Europe also observed the results of a benchmarking exercise that was conducted recently between different digital printing technologies. During the exercise, which was carried out by an independent printer, three identical labels were printed on the same material using three different technologies: UV inkjet, liquid toner and Xeikon’s dry QA-I toner. Each label, lying side-by-side, was exposed to 800 hours of sunshine during the four months of April to August this year. 

The deltaE, which is the unit of measure of color difference, was measured for seven different colors of each label. At the end of the 800 hours, the deltaE of the Xeikon printed sample was less across all seven colors, with an average deltaE of 7.6, compared to 12.2 for the inkjet-printed label and 37.3 for the alternative liquid toner technology.

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