JP2008073857A - Manufacturing method of laminated printed material and thermal transfer ink ribbon used therein - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a manufacturing method of a printed material having a clear printed image of a laminated printed material and a high scratch resistance even under the condition that the surface of a printing adherend is rough and the material of the printing adherend is unsuitable for thermal transfer printing at the acquisition of a printed material printed with a thermal transfer printer by laminating the printing adherend with a laminated film and further a thermal transfer ink ribbon employed in the thermal transfer printer. <P>SOLUTION: The manufacturing method of the printed material comprises the printing of an image on the surface of the bonding layer of the laminated film with the thermal transfer printer through the thermal transfer ink ribbon and the overlapping lamination of the image surface of the manufactured laminated film onto the printing adherend. The colored heat softening ink layer of the thermal transfer ink ribbon is mainly made of epoxy resin and colorant. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2008,JPO&INPIT

Description

In order to ensure the durability of the printed material, it is known to laminate a laminated film on the printed material. The present invention relates to the field of producing a laminated printed material by a thermal transfer technique.

In order to ensure the durability of the printed material, it is known that the printed material printed on the printing adherend is covered with a laminating film and heated and pressurized for lamination. In the conventional method, printing is performed on a printing adherend using a printing machine such as a thermal transfer printer, an ink jet printer, or a laser printer, and then the printed adherend is laminated to produce a printed matter. (Patent Documents 1 and 2) When laminating to a printed adherend by this method, the quality of the printed image greatly fluctuated due to the influence of irregularities on the surface of the printed adherend. Furthermore, this effect was significant when printing was performed with a thermal transfer printer. That is, the print adherend needs to be prepared in advance in order to obtain a fine image.

In Patent Document 3, an image is printed by a thermal transfer printer on a single-layer intermediate transfer medium having a melting point of 40 to 200 ° C., and the intermediate transfer medium itself is heated and pressurized by superimposing the image surface and a print adherend, A method for producing a printed material by fusing is described. In this method, it is described that it is possible to obtain a printed matter on which an image can be recorded even on a print adherend having a rough surface. However, since the intermediate transfer medium needs a certain thickness and has a relatively low melting point of 40 to 200 ° C. made of wax and / or resin, the intermediate transfer medium is used when fusing with the printing adherend. There was a problem that the image fluctuated and the image was distorted. Further, since the melting point of the intermediate transfer medium is low, the intermediate transfer medium itself is easily scratched and the scratch resistance is not high.

Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 08-39946 JP 2002-67504 A Japanese Patent No. 2552116

Even if the surface of the printed adherend is uneven when the printed product is obtained by laminating the printed adherend using a laminate film, the material of the printed adherend is thermal transfer printing. Even if the material is inappropriate, the printed image of the laminated printed material is clear and provides a method for producing a printed material having high scratch resistance. Furthermore, the present invention provides a thermal transfer ink ribbon for use in this thermal transfer printer.

In the first invention, a printed matter is produced by printing an image on the adhesive layer surface of the laminate film with a thermal transfer printer and a thermal transfer ink ribbon and then laminating the image surface of the produced laminate film on the print adherend. Is the method.
In the second invention, the main components of the colored heat-softening ink layer of the thermal transfer ink ribbon are an epoxy resin and a colorant.

It is possible to obtain a printed material with a clear laminated image without being influenced by the quality of the printed adherend.

The laminate film used in the present invention has a structure in which an adhesive layer is provided by applying a hot melt agent on a substrate. . As a base material, transparent films, such as OPP, PE, and PET, are common, and 10-100 micrometers is preferably used for base material thickness. Preferably, 10-30 micrometers is used. As the hot melt agent, EVA, EEA, PE, polyamide, urethane resin and modified products thereof are used, and the coating thickness is preferably about 5 to 30 μm. More preferably, it is set as the range of 10-20 micrometers. The softening point of the hot melt is 50 to 200 ° C., and preferably 120 ° C. or less from the viewpoint of curling prevention after lamination. When the temperature is lower than 50 ° C., a problem also occurs in blocking between the laminate films. As the laminate film, a commercially available hot laminate film may be used.

  Next, the thermal transfer ink ribbon will be described. As a configuration of the thermal transfer ink ribbon, a thermal transfer ink ribbon having a heat-resistant layer provided on the back side and a colored thermosoftening ink layer provided thereon is used. Various heat-resistant films can be used as the substrate, but a PET film is preferred from the balance of cost and strength. The base material having a thickness in the range of 2 to 12 μm can be used, and 2.5 to 6 μm is particularly preferable from the viewpoint of strength and thermal conductivity. The colored heat softening ink is mainly composed of a thermoplastic resin and a colorant. As the thermoplastic resin, an epoxy resin, a polyester resin, an acrylic resin, a urethane resin, a styrene resin, a phenol-derived resin, an ethylene copolymer resin, a vinyl acetate resin, or the like can be used, and the softening point is 60 to 160 ° C. A more preferable softening point is in the range of 60 to 100 ° C. In particular, when the printing adherend is paper, a particularly preferable thermoplastic resin is an epoxy resin. A colored thermosoftening ink mainly composed of an epoxy resin and a colorant has good thermal transfer to a laminate film and at the same time good lamination to paper.

  Waxes may be added to the colored heat-softening ink layer to adjust the thermal transfer sensitivity. As waxes, natural waxes such as wax, beeswax, carnauba wax, candelilla wax, montan wax and ceresin wax; petroleum waxes such as paraffin wax and microcrystalline wax; oxidized wax, ester wax, polyethylene wax, oxidized Synthetic waxes such as polyethylene wax, Fischer-Tropsch wax, α-olefin-maleic anhydride copolymer wax; higher fatty acids, myristic acid, palmitic acid, stearic acid, behenic acid; higher alcohols, myristyl alcohol, cetyl alcohol, stearyl alcohol Eicosyl alcohol, seryl alcohol; higher fatty acid esters such as higher fatty acid monoglycerides, fatty acid esters of sucrose, fatty acid esters of sorbitan Ether; a higher ether, distearyl ether; as higher fatty acid amides, stearic acid amide, and the like oleyl. One or more of these waxes can be used.

  As the colorant, pigments and dyes that are usually used in the field of thermal transfer recording media can be used. The content of the colorant in the colored heat-softening ink layer is preferably in the range of 30 to 70% by weight. The thickness of the colored heat-softening ink layer can be 0.2 to 10 μm. 0.2 to 1.0 μm is particularly preferable. If it is less than the above range, it is difficult to obtain a printing density. When the range is exceeded, it is difficult to obtain a printing resolution.

Further, a particle component and a lubricant component may be added to prevent blocking.
In addition, an adhesive layer may be provided on the colored heat-softening ink layer from the viewpoint of printing sensitivity. Similarly, a release layer may be provided between the substrate and the colored thermosoftening ink layer from the viewpoint of printing sensitivity. For the adhesive layer and the release layer, the thermoplastic resin mentioned in the above colored thermosoftening ink can be used as a main component. It is particularly preferable to use an epoxy resin for the release layer because it becomes a surface during lamination. Moreover, you may mix | blend a lubricant etc. with a release layer as a peeling regulator. Examples of the lubricant include the waxes.

  In the printed matter of the first invention, first, an image is printed on the surface of the adhesive layer on which the hot melt agent of the laminate film is applied, using a thermal transfer printer and a thermal transfer ink ribbon. The image may be a monochrome image using only a black ink ribbon or a full color image using three primary color ink ribbons. Since the surface of the adhesive layer is flat, the thermal transfer image can always obtain a fine image. Next, a printed matter can be obtained by laminating the image surface of the laminate film on the print adherend and laminating. The heating temperature for laminating is preferably in the range of 80 to 200 ° C. Usually, it can be laminated by passing these objects between two hot rolls. In the printed matter thus produced, even if the surface of the printed adherend is rough, the fineness of the image that was first thermally transferred is not impaired.

As the print adherend, paper such as PPC paper, high-quality paper, coated paper, postcards, plastic sheets, plastic cards, and the like can be used.

1. As a base material for producing the thermal transfer ink ribbon, a 4.5 μm thick PET film with a heat resistant layer on the back surface is prepared. The thermal transfer ink ribbons 1 to 3 were prepared by applying the colored thermosoftening inks 1 to 3 shown in Table 1 on the substrate opposite to the heat-resistant layer and drying to provide a colored thermosoftening ink layer having a thickness of 0.8 μm.
Table 1 Colored heat-softening ink layer coating solution (wt%)

2. As a laminate film for producing a printed material, an OPP base material having a thickness of 15 μm coated with 15 μm of an EVA hot melt agent was used. Three types of print adherends were used: PPC paper, fine paper, and cast coated paper. The thermal transfer printer used was a test thermal transfer printer with 600 dpi resolution. As a laminator, TP600A2 manufactured by Taisei was used.
The laminating temperature was 110 ° C.

As printed materials of Examples 1 to 3, thermal transfer images were printed on laminate films using thermal transfer ink ribbons 1 to 3 with a thermal transfer printer. Thereafter, the thermal transfer image surface of the laminate film and the print adherend were laminated and laminated. As a printed matter of Comparative Examples 1 to 3, a thermal transfer image was printed on the print adherend using a thermal transfer ink ribbon 1 to 3 with a thermal transfer printer. Thereafter, a laminate film was laminated on the thermal transfer image surface of the printed adherend and laminated.

3. Evaluation method It evaluated by the following evaluation method. The evaluation results were as shown in Tables 2 and 3.
(1) Printability Thermal transfer The fineness of the printed image was confirmed visually.
○: A good image was obtained.
(Triangle | delta): The unevenness | corrugation of the unevenness | corrugation of paper was seen.
X: Unevenness of unevenness of the paper is seen, and a good image cannot be obtained.
(2) Laminate Fixability The fixability of the laminate film after lamination was visually confirmed.
○: Completely settled.
Δ: Fixed but peeled off immediately after peeling.
X: Not fixed.

Table 2 Laminate after printing on laminate film

Table 3 Laminate after printing on printing paper

Claims (2)

A method for producing a printed matter by printing an image on a surface of an adhesive layer of a laminate film with a thermal transfer printer and a thermal transfer ink ribbon, and then laminating an image surface of the produced laminate film on a printing adherend. A thermal transfer ink ribbon, wherein the main components of the colored heat-softening ink layer of the thermal transfer ink ribbon are an epoxy resin and a colorant.