The Cambridge-based company Industrial Inkjet Ltd, better known as IIJ, has shown off an inkjet wallpaper printing system at the Heimtextil show in Frankfurt that it claims will revolutionise the wallpaper business.
IIJ has worked with Konica Minolta for the past 18 months to develop this system and claims that it can compete with conventional printing methods on both productivity and cost-per-roll. It can print a wide range of typical wallpaper media at linear speeds of up to 70m/min, much faster than other wallpaper printing systems currently available.
John Corrall, IIJ Managing Director, says that the wallpaper industry is looking for digital printing at full production speeds, noting: “Our view is that wallpaper printing is about to see a massive shift to digital technology thanks to the improvements in inkjet capability. Ink performance and cost, print width and speed are all now within reach.”
He adds: “When we started, the main difficulty was in developing an ink that meets all of the requirements from the wallpaper industry. It’s not just the appearance, the ink has to work on a very wide range of common wallpaper media and it has to meet standards for emissions and wash and scrub tests.”
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