Kodak is continuing to develop its UltraStream inkjet technology with Uteco announcing that it will start working this year to develop a new packaging press in time for Drupa 2020.
Uteco has already developed an inkjet press, the Sapphire Evo, using Kodak’s existing Stream inkjet. This press was shown as a concept at Drupa 2016, and shipped commercially last year. So far Uteco has sold two, with the first one going to Nuova Erreplast based in Italy last June. More recently, Uteco sold a second machine to the Japanese company Kinyosha.
But now Uteco has signed up to license Kodak’s next generation inkjet, UltraStream, which promises higher resolution up to 600 x 1800 dpi and faster speeds up to 150mpm. UltraStream uses water-based inks and will print to both plastics and paper.
Kodak will deliver the UltraStream line head later this year for product development efforts with Uteco hoping to have a flexible packaging press ready to ship for 2020. This will make Uteco one of the first OEMs to use the UltraStream inkjet.
Aldo Peretti, CEO of the Uteco Group, explained: “Our customers are looking for sustainably advantaged hybrid digital production solutions to enable short run versioning with compelling economics. Utilizing the combination of traditional flexo and gravure, along with digital inkjet technologies, these solutions optimize film handling, priming, post-coating and drying to deliver the performance requirements for the packaging market. Kodak’s proprietary continuous inkjet system continues to be technology of choice which delivers great quality, productivity and running cost for these industry-leading packaging solutions.”
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