During the last few years, fountain solutions have been improved in response to requests owing to the following.
1. Amendment of the Water Pollution Control Law.
Nitrate-free and ammonium-free fountain solutions began to be developed.
2. Compliance with the Ordinance on the Prevention of Organic Solvent Poisoning to reduce bile duct cancer.
The changeover to IPA-free fountain solution has not made much progress.
3. Fountain solutions corresponding to high-sensitivity UV printing using LED-UV lamps or UV ozone-free lamps.
Fountain solutions have been improved for pH stability and scumming of the dampening rollers.
4. Response to problems caused by the degradation of paper quality by reducing printing costs and increasing importation of paper.
Specific scratch scumming is increasing rapidly. Scratches occur due to sand grain contamination in the printing paper. It has become possible to suppress this scratch scumming with fountain solution. Over the past few years, newly developed fountain solutions have been able to suppress blanket piling. Blanket piling is caused by small amounts of ink on non-image areas that bleed onto the image. The new fountain solution can suppress blanket piling by reducing this unwanted ink.
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