Dendritic copper nanowires were electrochemically prepared and dispersed in a transparent nonconductive polymer film as fillers by merely stirring, and the film's transparency and electrical conductivity were examined. This composite film is a unique system in which the typical length of the fillers exceeds the film thickness (5.0µm). The electric conductivity in the direction of the film thickness was on the order of 10^-3S/cm to 10^-2S/cm for the filler volume fraction ranging from 0.020 to 0.20vol%. The visible light transmission and electric conductivity of the composite film with a volume fraction of 0.20vol% were 98% and 2.0×10^-2S/cm, respectively. In addition, the electric conductivity of the composite film in the film-thick direction was enhanced by the surface polishing of the film, and the value of 1.2×10^-1S/cm was obtained at a filler concentration of 0.16vol%. This was explained on the basis of the removal of the polymer-rich layer on the film surface by the polishing.

The electropolymerized films of 3-methoxythiophene with a gold-like luster were prepared by a cyclic potential-sweep method, and the effects of potential-sweep range and potential-sweep rate on the color tone and morphology of the films were investigated. In the former investigation, it was revealed that the full dedoping was required to be involved in the film formation process in order for the films to exhibit a gold-like luster. The latter investigation demonstrated that the lower the sweep rate, the higher the reflectance of the films above the wavelength of ca. 500nm. These results were tentatively explained by a mechanistic model in which the edge-on lamella structure, which is the most likely building block to develop a gold-like luster, is formed by fully dedoping the film and by lowering the sweep rate during the growth of the films.

Density unevenness degrades quality of a printed image when density difference from an original image is large. However, visibility of the density unevenness varies depending on contents of the original input image. We assumed visibility of the density unevenness, which appears in various printed images in the market, could be affected by some features of input images. We took up the saliency distribution and the spatial frequency of tone distribution in the input image as key features, and performed experiments to clarify correlation between visibility of density unevenness and those features. We found that the key feature was spatial frequency components, similar to those of the density unevenness, in the input image area with the same size as the density unevenness. The correlation with saliency was found to be week, but would be tested again since the experimental method should be improved.

Industrial inkjet printing system (printer) is one of encouraging markets for inkjet technologies. But this market has some particularities different from existing consumer printers that media used in this market is multiplicity or printed products become salable goods, and new technical approaches including ideas acquiring a high reliability have to be introduced in the printing system.

In this paper, the latest important technical approaches introduced in the industrial printing system featuring improving reliability are picked up and explained. Evolutional model of inkjet technologies in a commercial printing market is examined.

drupa is the world's largest exhibition for printing and media industry and has been held every four years at Messe Düsseldorf. It is regarded as the exhibition at which printer manufacturers tend to showcase their latest technology. Inkjet printers, which had productivity comparable to the conventional analog printing press, were disclosed firstly in drupa 2008. Some people called the exhibition “Inkjet drupa” accordingly. In 2016, many printer manufacturers exhibited many inkjet printers with their latest technologies. It was intended to realize that it has entered the era of full-fledged spread of inkjet;some people called it “Inkjet 3.0.” In this paper, an overview of the inkjet printing machine announced by the companies to explain the technology trends of the market.

Kodansha Fujimino Factory started operation in January 2013. Since then, it's innovational challenge was attracted attention in Japanese Printing and publishing industry.

Kodansha is one of the largest publishers in Japan, but it's not common that publisher operates it's own factory. While some experts evaluated as an epochal attempt to break through the publishing recession, many understood “Publishers are changing outsourcing policy”“Offset printing will be replaced by digital printing in publishing market”.

Now, after 3 years operation, Kodansha reports real purpose of factory, achievement, and current situation.

After FUJIFILM announced the B2 sheet-fed inkjet printer for commercial printing market in drupa 2008, we commercialized Jet Press 720 which achieved offset printing image quality in 2011. Jet Press 720S improved stability and reliability as a production machine and realized the full variable printing as a digital printer. After that, we improved the system to handle thicker paper to respond user needs. Through these developments, we enhanced the system integration technology and also enhanced the inkjet head technology, inkjet ink, and image optimization technology to establish FUJIFILM INKJET TECHNOLOGY^TM. This technology expands our business, such as supplying inkjet head units to other companies. In this paper, we describe the unique challenges in the commercial printing market through JetPress series development and what technologies have been used to solve the issues of commercial printing.

In the label printer market, digital press has been increasing for smaller product lot size and variable print. Inkjet press is growing with productivity and output quality. Ink used in the press is classified into aqueous ink, aqueous resin ink, and ultraviolet ray (UV) curing ink. With the aqueous ink, inkjet media is used and the main unit is less expensive. Aqueous resin ink, general stock media can be used. UV ink, the energy efficiency of the UV curing is high and print speed can be high. In addition to these features, inkjet technology meets the demand of label; (1) productivity, (2) supporting media, (3) image quality, (4) durability, and (5) added value. The inkjet technology is replacing analog print, and is expected as new value technology.

Flexible packaging production is growing with advantage of less weight and waste of the packaging material compared to bottles and cans. High mix and low volume production is required because of recent change in life style and marketing. Although digitalization of flexible packaging industry is still in early days, some LIT printers have been introduced to the market. FUJIFILM has developed EUCON (Enhanced undercoating and nitrogen purging) technology to solve the problem of ink bleeding and print odor due to UV monomers and has achieved high printing speed 50 meter per minute with R2R single pass system. Technology development of flexible package printing is activated including water based inkjet.

With progress of the industrial digital output device, a photo book developed as one of the main articles. In particular, an ink-jet system is one of influential output devices for photo books with regard to picture quality. On the other hand, the printing paper evolved with the progress of the device, too. The quality of printing paper relates to the merchantability of the photo book. This report shows the technology of paper for ink-jet system, in particular, about function of pore property and multi-layered structure of ink receiving layer for high productivity device. And as technology related to merchantability, control methods of surface aspect, gloss and base paper structure are described.

Newspapers are most typically produced in mass production. They are printed by using an offset rotary press, which is capable of printing large numbers of copies in a short time. However, due to a growth in the use of internet communication and digital communication devices such as tablets and smartphones, the circulation of newspaper continues to drop. According to a statistical survey by NSK (Nihon Shinbun Kyokai), the circulation of newspapers over the last decade has fallen by approximately 8 million copies from 52 million copies in 2005 to 44 million copies in 2015.¹⁾ Similar trends are seen around the world. As a result of declining circulations, overseas printing companies are inclined to use digital printing technology which reduces running costs and enables small volume printing rather than using the high volume offset printing machines. This report describes newspaper printing technology using digital printers and remarks about the outlook for the newspaper industry.

Conventionally, business card, catalogs and odd lots of commercial printing are printed mainly by light offset printing and stencil printing. In recent years, production printing has made the market mainly in commercial printing area by hand in hand with the digitalization advancement of electrophotography and inkjet printing. Recently, light production printers categorized as the entry-level model among the production printer have formed a light printing market. Although the speed and the image quality of light production printers cannot stand comparison with the production printers, because light production printers have a certain productivity and quality with reasonable initial cost, it is rapidly expanding the broadening the base market. This paper introduces technologies and problem-solving regarding the inkjet light production printer to meet the market demand (high productivity, high image quality, high reliability, corresponding paper width, and low-cost) of light printing market. Although the inkjet light production printer was highlighted in drupa 2016, this paper mainly mentions sheet-fed printers, and roll-fed printers are touched in Chapter 5.

Single pass inkjet technology for continuous feed printing system is becoming popular in the transaction market, and continuous feed inkjet printers, which is able to realize a print quality applicable to a high quality direct mail and a commercial printing as a future application, are unveiled. Truepress Jet520HD is one of the best continuous feed inkjet printer developed by SCREEN Graphic and Precision Solutions Co., Ltd. The continuous feed inkjet printing technologies essential to move into commercial printing market from the transaction market in future are introduced in this literature. The print quality and the accuracy have been evolved further based on the technologies implemented in Truepress Jet520, which targets to the transaction market, for inkjet, transportation and inspection. The new field support system to minimize a down-time is also introduced hereunder.

Serial inkjet printers is suited to wide format printers for signs and display graphics, as they can easily be adapted for wide printing.

With the spread of wide format printers of Roll-to-roll and flatbed types, many kinds of printing media and inks used in this field have also developed greatly in the past 10 years.

The inkjet technology that allows non-contact printing makes inkjet wide format printers suitable for an ever wider variety of applications, such as digital printing for purposes other than sign and display printing, or industrial applications such as digital textile printing.

Users now demand more than just appealing images from inkjet printers. They also demand higher printing technology in terms of textures, high visibility and attractiveness.

This paper describes the current situation of sign and display printers, as well as the future challenges of inkjet printers used for industrial purposes.

Pattern is printed onto fabrics mainly by analog means, screen printing. Digital printing by inkjet printer was begun around the end of 20th century, but its progress has been slow. Its ratio in the market has still remained in a few percent. Production rates in the conventional inkjet printer, even in the fastest ones, were less than 10% of the screen printers. The small productivity limited the progress of digitalization. Recently a high-speed inkjet printing technology, so-called “single pass printing technology,” has been developed. The technology has made the inkjet printer much faster in production rate, and it is expected to accelerate the conversion from analog to digital.

In this paper, we will explain technical points of the Konica Minolta's latest inkjet printer, NASSENGER SP-1, as an example of the single pass printer.