Herein, we introduce the heat-sealable paper "Lamina" developed by applying coating technology on paper, as well as explain the current issues and solutions pertaining to "paperization" based on case examples and experience.

Demand for packages is expected to continue to increase as they are essential for solving problems such as improving people's quality of life and reducing food loss. However, used packages are plastic waste, which can cause environmental pollution. To realize a sustainable recycling-based society, ink manufacturers are developing new environmental-friendly products. To contribute to this effort, we are focusing on the development and popularization of water-based inks. Water-based ink is safer and more hygienic than oil-based ink; furthermore, it can effectively reduce CO₂ emission. However, water-based ink does not dry easily, and the printing speed of some existing printing presses cannot be increased when water-based ink is used. Therefore, water-based printing exhibits low production efficiency and is thus not widely adopted currently. To improve the drying performance of water-based inks, one of the solutions is to combine a high-solid ink with a reduced coating amount using printing cylinders with shallow cells. In addition, we are currently focusing on the development of water-based high-solid type biomass inks that use biomass materials as the ink material. We aim to contribute to the realization of a sustainable recycling-oriented society by integrating new environmental-friendly water-based inks and water-based printing technologies into packages that are currently under consideration for practical use.

Mono-material flexible packaging is an eco-friendly form of packaging designed to be readily recycled. Guidelines regarding the recycling of PP or PE flexible packaging have been released by some consortiums, e.g., CEFLEX, APR, and RecyClass. In Japan, a law for recycling plastic materials has been enforced by the Ministry of Environment based on the cycle strategy of plastics, followed by the enactment of 3R+Renewable. Most plastic packaging is composed of multiple materials that require barriers and heat sealing. Although aluminum foils or gas barrier films are typically used in food packaging, each of their layers are difficult to separate, which hinders their individual recycling. A PP mono-material standing pouch with a zipper has been developed by DNP. The packaging, which incorporates more than 90% PP, satisfies the CEFLEX guidelines on material recycling. Conversion technology is used to prevent the barrier deterioration caused by mono materialization. When it is used for packaging black tea, it maintains the flavor of black tea leaves for a significant duration owing to the high gas barrier afforded, which is similar to that of aluminum foils. Hence, by replacing the conventional three-layer structure, which includes an aluminum foil and a two-layer structure, the packaging weight and CO₂ emission can be reduced by 13% and 33%, respectively.

To reduce environmental pollution, beverage package containers are rapidly being replaced from PET bottle containers to aluminum can containers. In particular, the recycling rate of aluminum cans remains high, which facilitates the realization of a recycling-oriented society. Two-piece cans are widely used as beverage containers because of their high productivity. To garner the interest of purchasers, the can body of two-piece cans is printed; considering productivity, letterpress is the most typically used method for printing on the can body of two-piece cans. However, the reproducibility of minute dots is insufficient for printing photographic images. Toray, a manufacturer of plate printing materials, expects that PRIXIATM, a printing plate that can be adopted for dry offset printing, will contribute to the printing of images on two-piece cans without restrictions to the intended design. Thus, the individuality of the products will be preserved, which will likely appeal to consumers.

As leading brand owners in various industries, such as daily necessities, food, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals, are adapting to a decarbonized society, they are also expressing their demand for cooperation and action to reduce CO₂ emission from packaging printing-related companies and other stakeholders. In the printing industry, "decarbonization" is a critical theme that must be addressed. Herein, we discuss the measures to address decarbonization and other related issues.

Herein, the planning and development of packaging papers with excellent design is described from a product planning and sales perspective, whereas the market trend in packaging and design is overviewed in general. We are attempting to develop packaging papers with textured designs that are not constrained by the conventional boxboard; additionally, we are pursuing new value-added portfolios in the existing marketplace, such as corrugated paperboards. Our suggestion for packaging in the next 10 years appears promising from the design standpoint.

Our research is to study the optimizing materials integration process for dye-sensitized solar cell electrode by using a LDM 3D-printing system. The 3D-printer will play an important role in adjusting the TiO₂-deposition on an electrode depending on the TiO₂ structures and their rheological property. This method also allows us to create multilayer design when different TiO₂ types are used which will be beneficial for electrical property improvement. It appears that the double layers TiO₂ electrode comprising of small and large particles lead to the improvement of sheet resistance. The light-scattering effect of the large particle most likely contributes to the performance improvement. Available commercial nano-TiO₂, P25 (30 nm) and ST-41 (160 nm), were used. Results showed the achievement of sheet resistance of printed TiO₂ was 1.12E+4 Ω/sq at thickness 16.67 μm and roughness (Ra) 257 nm. While single layer TiO₂ of small and large particle size gave the sheet resistance values at 3.77E+6 Ω/sq and 6.20E+5 Ω/sq respectively.

This research aimed to study the factors affecting the ink transfer in flexographic printing, including ink temperature, and anilox roller. The research was experimental research by studying the ink transfer from anilox roller to plate and from plate to print substrate. The independent variables in the experiment were (1) the ink temperature with 5 levels: 25°C, 30°C, 35°C, 40°C, 45°C, and (2) the anilox roller that used to transfer the ink to the plate having 3 resolutions: 1,000 lpi (volume of 1.7 cm³/m²), 700 lpi, (volume of 3.5 cm³/m²), 500 lpi (volume of 5 cm³/m²). The print image was 7 screen tint of 100%, 90%, 70%, 50%, 30%, 10% and 5%. The dependent variables were the amount of printing ink transfer from the anilox roller to the plate and from the plate to the printing substrates; percent dot area, print density and lightness of color on printed substrates to find out the optimum printing conditions. From the experimental results, it was found that the ink temperatures of 25°C and 30°C was suitable for flexographic printing whereas the printing speed and anilox resolution did not affect the ink transfer from the anilox roller to plate and from plate to printing substrates.

The purposes of this project were 1) to determine the adhesion properties of gravure inks; solvent-base, alcohol-base, and water-base, on biodegradable plastic films, 2) to study the resistance properties to heat, cool and oil environment, and 3) to compare the optical print density between printed inks on the film of polylactic acid (PLA) and high-density polyethylene (HDPE). There were 5 types of gravure printing inks with different formular to applied for the surface treated and non-treated film. The results showed that all printing ink types had good printability on the PLA. The adhesion tested by tape test method follow ASTM D3395 showed that 2 types of solvent-based ink had slightly better adhesion on the non-treated PLA than did the alcohol-based inks, but the water-based ink had poorer adhesion. All ink films on PLA had good resistance to the heated plate around 60-65°C for 15 minutes. For the cool resistance tested in a freezer around -6°C for 24 hours, the solvent-based inks and the alcohol-based ink for non-treated film had the same good adhesion while the water-based ink film was peeled off especially from the non-treated film. The oil resistance tested by dipping in vegetable oils for 24 hours indicated that the solvent-based ink film and the water-based ink film was not peeled off while the alcohol-based ink film was removed or not resistance to oil. The average optical print density of alcohol-based inks on the PLA were not significantly different from that on the HDPE. Therefore, the alcohol-based ink made for non-treated film should be alternatively applied with the PLA due to more eco-friendly than the solvent-based ink and the surface treatment will be not necessary. However, the water-based ink can also be applied only with the surface-treated PLA.

This paper presents a highly accurate classification model (MultiDiffNet) for print inspection images. In the traditional method, defects can be detected by simple image features based on rule-based image processing on an inspection machine. Nevertheless, visual inspection is still practical to verify whether a detected image is good or not good in some cases. We consider the traditional image processing as the primary inspection and solve this problem by using deep learning technology to perform higher-dimensional feature extraction and classification instead of visual inspection. Our proposed model has demonstrated an accuracy as high as 99.0% for the PIDD dataset by inputting a set of two images, feature extraction from multiple resolutions, and the adoption of an attention architecture. The attention architecture, which visualizes the regions of interest, also showed the basis for outputting the classification results.