RLA has been involved in the evolution and growth of ink jet technologies since the early 1970's and has invested in the development of custom monochrome and process color ink jet chemistries for a wide range of applications and market segments. These include:
| Ink jet ink formulations for continuous printhead designs |
| Black and IR scannable continuous ink jet ink formulations for industrial applications |
| High resolution ink jet technology for computer to plate applications |
| UV curable water based inks |
| Water based dye systems suited to ink jet operation for process color and water resistant black inks |
| Color textile printing ink formulations |
Ink jet market applications are expanding into new industrial and graphic arts markets and developments are focusing on higher resolution, drop placement accuracy and ever higher print speeds. The successful application of ink jet technology to new market applications requires advancements in new dyes and pigments, and the development of innovative new printing technologies.
RLA has developed new innovative non-contact printing technologies that are not only evolutionary developments of current printing technologies, but revolutionary new technologies to address the demanding requirements of the future digital printing applications. In addition to this, RLA develops specialised materials to embrace these new innovations and provide high quality consumables necessary to achieve the high standards required of the final application. These technologies address many of the challenges faced by current ink jet printing processes, providing superior performance.
With 40 years in the science of imaging chemistries and systems, RLA has valuable expertise in the color matching of dyes and pigment dispersion technology for water and solvent based inks, and has the experience required to meet future ink jet ink development needs.
In recent times there has been significant development of piezo Drop-on-Demand ink jet technology, particularly as an alternative to the thermal jet approach. RLA is currently developing inks to suit the parameters of various piezo technologies, not only for paper but also for non-absorbent substrates such as polyolefin, PVC, metals etc. Further, wide format ink jet has been marketed to outdoor applications, therefore RLA produces pigment-based inks to provide UV resistance and image stability.
RLA has considerable experience in ink jet ink chemistry and process. Over the past few years RLA has invested heavily in researching ink jet technologies with a purpose to identify those unique opportunities and applications where RLA can add value and develop inks for a variety of ink jet systems.
RLA is able to provide a range of services to those interested in developing or creating ink jet applications. These include:
| Development of complete ink jet applications and solutions |
| Ink development and manufacturing |
| Matching of appropriate ink jet technologies for various applications |
| Creating new applications where ink jet technologies can be applied |
| Analysis and performance assessment of ink jet print heads and devices |
| Analytical assessment of print media and substrates used for ink jet printing |