JPH11334264A - Decomposable card - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To prevent a public contamination from generating, or reduce at the time of a card disposal, and in addition, keep card functions by a method wherein for the card base material main body, the base material is made of a decomposable plastic material which can be decomposed in the natural world, and at one part, uneven characters by an embossing are formed. SOLUTION: A decomposable plastic material is a resin which can be decomposed by light and a microbe such as a polyolefin, i.e., polyethylene, polypropylene or the like, polyvinyl alcohol, or a polyester. For this decomposable card 1, the card base material main body 2 is made of a white decomposable plastic sheet 3 comprising a biodegradable plastic 3 which is decomposed by, e.g. a microbe. Then, at one part of the card base material main body 2, uneven characters 4 by an embossing are formed. By this method, even when a disposed card is left to stand, the generation of a public contamination can be reduced, and also, required card functions can be kept at a quality which is not inferior when compared with conventional cards.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a card used for various plastic cards such as credit cards, cash cards, ID cards and the like, and various disposable prepaid cards such as telephone cards and shopping cards. The present invention relates to a degradable card that uses a degradable card base body to prevent the destruction of the natural environment by a waste card and promote pollution-free.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, various plastic cards such as credit cards, cash cards, ID cards and the like, and various disposable prepaid cards such as telephone cards and shopping cards have been adopted in various fields and industries. Of these, various plastic cards often use polyvinyl chloride as a card base material, and various disposable prepaid cards often use PET (polyethylene terephthalate). Among them, disposable prepaid cards such as telephone cards have a predetermined fixed usage amount recorded, and when the usage amount is used up, the prepaid card itself becomes unnecessary and most are discarded. Become.

[0003] The disposal of such disposable prepaid cards after use has traditionally had to rely on incineration or landfilling, and so the disposal of plastic waste is currently being highlighted as a major social problem. . In other words, incineration requires a high heat-resistant furnace that can withstand the great combustion energy of plastic waste, which not only increases the disposal cost, but also incinerates a large amount of card, resulting in emission of carbon monoxide. When air pollutants such as sulfur and sulfur compounds incinerate polyvinyl chloride, chlorine gas is further generated, which may lead to environmental pollution such as air pollution. In the landfill treatment, the plastic material remains almost permanently without being decomposed, and is deposited as waste at the disposal site, which has become a social problem as a garbage problem. Moreover, since the plastic material exists in the ground as it is, there is a risk that the ground of the landfill will not be stable and that there will be a risk of adversely affecting various living things in the land and the area where the plastic material is landfilled. .

[0004] New cards are expected to cope with the problem of discarded cards as described above. However, these new cards are naturally required to have a conventional card function. The required card functions include embossing the card base material so that characters and numerical information can be provided as uneven characters, and a visible information display section can be provided on at least a part of the card. However, it is necessary for new cards to provide a card that is not inferior in quality to conventional vinyl chloride cards by using a resin of a different material for the card base material. It is important to be able to have these functions in order to widely utilize the new card in various fields and applications.

[0005]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in order to prevent or reduce the occurrence of various types of pollution at the time of discarding a conventional card as described above. Even newer cards that can reduce the occurrence of pollution and dispose of discarded cards compared to conventional cards, and embossing that is the card function used for conventional vinyl chloride resin cards An object of the present invention is to provide a decomposable card in which a character and a visible information display section can be provided.

[0006]

In order to achieve the above object, a degradable card according to the present invention comprises a base material constituting a card base body made of a degradable plastic material which can be degraded in nature. An uneven character is formed by embossing at least a part of a card base body.

In the degradable card according to the present invention, the base material constituting the card base body is made of a degradable plastic material which can be decomposed in nature, and a visible information display portion is provided on at least a part of the card base body. It is characterized by having.

The base material constituting the card base body is composed of a plurality of laminated base materials, and the degradable plastic material of the base material is biodegradable so that it can be decomposed by microorganisms. It is characterized by being made of resin. These degradable plastic materials can affect the card base due to heating applied when recording information on the heat-sensitive recording layer, which is the visible information display part provided on the card, and the unevenness formed by embossing the card base. Heating applied during thermal transfer when coloring the convex surface of the character,
In order to prevent the influence on the card base material due to pressurization, the degradable plastic material is made of a material that does not exhibit flexibility when heated at less than 50 ° C.

[0009] The degradable card is characterized in that the visible information display portion provided on at least a part of the card base body is composed of a thermosensitive recording layer, a reversible thermosensitive recording layer, and a magnetic recording display layer.

[0010]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings. 1 is a plan view showing an embodiment of the disassemblable card of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a sectional view of FIG. 1, FIG. 3 is a sectional view of another embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. It is an exploded sectional view concerning an example.

The degradable card 1 of the present invention has a card base body formed of a single-layer base material of one sheet or a laminated base structure in which a plurality of sheets are stacked. The base material may be configured as a material body, and a base material made of a degradable plastic material that can be decomposed in nature is used as a base material for all sheets constituting the card base material body. Examples of the laminated structure of the base material of the card base body include, for example, a single-layer sheet of a degradable plastic sheet having a white color, and two transparent degradable plastic sheets with a degradable plastic sheet having a white color inside. A plastic sheet sandwiched from the top and bottom and laminated, and two transparent degradable plastic sheets with white laminated inside and two transparent degradable plastic sheets inside And the like, which are configured to be stacked in a state of being sandwiched between them.

The decomposable decomposable plastic material is a resin formed of a polyolefin resin such as decomposable polyethylene resin or decomposable polypropylene, polyvinyl alcohol or decomposable polyester and decomposable by light or microorganisms.

Among the degradable plastic materials which can be degraded in the natural world, microorganism-degradable (or biodegradable)
Commercially available products include, for example, thermoplastic polyester manufactured by ICI, trade name "Biopol", N
Ovamoat's starch / modified PVA system, trade name "Mater-Bi", Warner Lambert's starch / modified PVA system, trade name "Novon", Shimadzu Corporation lactic acid base, trade name "Lacty", Mitsui Toatsu Kogyo Lactic acid, trade name "Lacia", UCC polycaprolactan, Japan Polyolefin dicarboxylic acid / diol, trade name "Bionole".

Among the decomposable resins, examples of the photodecomposable resin include a copolymer of ethylene and carbon monoxide. It is said that this ethylene / carbon monoxide copolymer is decomposed by cleavage between light at the second and third carbon atoms bonded to the carbonyl group. And the decomposition rate can be adjusted by the content of carbon monoxide in the copolymer. Usually, the density of the ethylene / carbon monoxide copolymer is about 0.89 to 0.95 g / cm ³ , and the content of carbon monoxide is about 0.1 to 10 mol%. The ethylene / carbon monoxide copolymer as described above can be produced, for example, by allowing ethylene and carbon monoxide to coexist at a temperature of 230 ° C. and a pressure of about 2000 atm.

As the photodegradable decomposable polyolefin resin, polyethylene (density: 0.870 to 0.950) is used.
g / cm ^3, melt index (MFI) 0.4 to 40) and polypropylene (density 0.88~0.91g / cm ^3, melt index (MFI) mixture of 0.2 to 50) and an organic acid metal salt Can also be used. Examples of the organic acid metal salt include iron stearate, cerium stearate, cobalt stearate, and the like, and metal oxides such as iron oxide and the like. The mixing amount of the organic acid metal salt is preferably about 1 to 5000 ppm. Further, a copolymer with vinyl ketone may be added. These degradable resins may be used alone or as a mixture of two or more, and may be appropriately selected according to the required properties such as strength and degradability.

The polycaprolactane used for the biodegradable polyolefin resin is obtained by ring-opening polymerization of ε-caprolactane, and has a polymerization average molecular weight (Mw) of:
Usually, it is about 40,000 to 100,000. Examples of the polyester polymerized by the microorganism used for the biodegradable polyolefin resin include a random copolymerized polyester of 3-hydroxybutyrate and 3-hydroxyvalerate, and a polyester obtained by supplying valeric acid to hydrogen bacteria.
Hydroxybutyrate-based polyesters and the like can be mentioned.

If necessary, a decomposable resin and a non-decomposable resin such as polyethylene may be mixed. However, when the total of the decomposable resin and the non-decomposable resin is 100% by weight, the amount of the decomposable resin mixed is 5% by weight is preferred. If the amount of the decomposable resin is less than 5% by weight, the decomposability will be insufficient.

Further, by using the above-mentioned biodegradable resin and photodegradable resin as raw materials for the degradable resin, a degradable resin having both photodegradability and microbial degradability can be obtained.

As a method for forming a sheet made of a decomposable plastic material, a known method such as a compression molding method, an injection molding method, an extrusion molding method, a lamination molding method, an inflation molding method or the like is used by using the above resin as a raw material. A sheet is formed by the method. As for the whitening of the decomposable plastic sheet having a white color, a white sheet can be produced by mixing titanium at the time of forming the sheet in each of the above-mentioned molding methods.

One embodiment of the degradable card 1 of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2.
It is a degradable plastic sheet 3 made of a biodegradable resin and having a white color. An uneven character 4 is formed on a part of the card base body 2 by embossing. On a part of the surface of the card base body 2, a visible information display section 6 including a reversible thermosensitive recording layer 5 is provided. The visible information display section 6 may be provided with a recording layer such as a thermosensitive recording layer, a magnetic recording display layer, etc., without being limited to the reversible thermosensitive recording layer. The magnetic recording display layer is formed by attaching microcapsules containing oil and magnetic flakes to the surface of a transparent substrate with a transparent binder to form a microcapsule layer. When oriented parallel to the surface, it reflects visible incident light to visually display the bright color of the magnetic flakes, and reflects the incident light when the magnetic flakes are oriented perpendicular to the surface of the transparent substrate. First, the dark color (for example, black) of the magnetic sheet is visually displayed, and the visible display is performed by contrast between the colors. The white degradable plastic sheet 3 made of a biodegradable resin, which is the card base body 2, is 5
It has a property of not exhibiting flexibility when heated below 0 ° C.

Another embodiment of the degradable card 1 of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG.
A transparent degradable plastic sheet 7 made of two biodegradable resins is sandwiched between two laminated degradable plastic sheets 3a and 3b made of a biodegradable resin and having white color.
a and 7b are laminated and closely integrated. An embossed character 4 is formed on a part of the card base body 2 by embossing, and a visible information display section made of a reversible thermosensitive recording layer 5 is formed on a part of the surface of the transparent decomposable plastic sheet 7a. 6 are provided. The degradable plastic sheets 3a and 3b and the transparent degradable plastic sheets 7a and 7b, each of which is made of a biodegradable resin and have a white color, are 50
It is made of a material having a property of not exhibiting flexibility when heated at a temperature lower than ℃.

On the surface of the decomposable plastic sheets 3a and 3b having white color, there is provided a print layer 8 for displaying various pictures, patterns, marks and the like. Printing layer 8
Are white degradable plastic sheets 3a, 3b
The combination is not particularly limited as long as the combination satisfies the resin, adhesiveness, physical characteristics, and the like, and a known material can be used. Specifically, pigments, dyes and the like polyurethane resin, polyester resin, vinyl chloride resin,
A vinyl acetate resin, a vinyl chloride-vinyl acetate copolymer, a polystyrene resin, an acrylic resin, a butyral resin, or the like may be appropriately selected and used, and a plasticizer or an additive may be added as needed. In addition, as a method of providing the print layer 8, the degradable plastic sheets 3a and 3b having white color are used.
Can be printed on the surface using a known printing method such as a gravure coating method, a screen printing method, an offset method, and a roll coating method. The printing layer 8 may be provided with a pattern or pattern on the entire surface of the degradable plastic sheets 3a and 3b having white color, or may be printed with characters or the like as necessary.

The transparent decomposable plastic sheet 7
When a magnetic stripe layer, which is a magnetic layer, is formed on the surface of a, a magnetic material may be appropriately selected according to a system to be used, and physical properties required in a range of 100 to 4000 (Oe) may be obtained. You only have to consider it. As a method of providing a magnetic stripe layer on the surface of the transparent decomposable plastic sheet 7a, a magnetic paint may be applied by a known method, or may be formed by once forming a transfer sheet, It may be formed by thermal transfer onto the sheet 7a.

[0024]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Hereinafter, specific embodiments of the degradable card 1 of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. <Example 1> First, a sheet of a biodegradable resin manufactured by ICI (trade name, Biopol) was processed by an extrusion molding machine under the conditions of a resin processing temperature of 170 ° C and an extrusion speed of 30 m / min. Transparent decomposable plastic sheets 7a and 7b were produced. Next, 10% by weight of titanium was added to the biodegradable resin, and white degradable plastic sheets 3a and 3b having a thickness of 0.28 mm were prepared in the same manner as described above.

Next, the degradable plastic sheets 7a and 7b having a white color and having a thickness of 0.28 mm produced as described above are placed on one sheet.
Two sheets cut out to a size of 00 mm × 200 m were prepared, and when two sheets were superposed on one side of each sheet, a thickness of 1 μm was formed on the side corresponding to the front and back surfaces of the card by offset printing. The printed layer 8 was provided by printing the pattern or character. At that time, in consideration of the adhesiveness between the printing ink and the biodegradable sheet, UVS card ink (manufactured by The Inktech Co., Ltd.), which is an offset ink, was used.

Next, the two decomposable plastic sheets 3a and 3b having white color and the two transparent decomposable plastic sheets 7a and 7b are overlapped as shown in FIG.
Heating temperature 150 ° C, Heating time 10
For one minute, thermocompression bonding was applied under the condition of a pressure of 100 kg / cm ² , and integrated. And 86mm × 5
The card base material 2 as shown in FIG. 3 was produced by punching out to a size of 4 mm.

Next, in order to provide a reversible thermosensitive recording layer 5 which is a visible information display portion 6 on a part of the surface of the transparent decomposable plastic sheet 7a of the card substrate 2, reversible thermosensitive recording comprising the following composition: Using the layer paint and the protective layer paint, a bar coat printing method is applied to the surface of the transparent decomposable plastic sheet 7a so that the reversible thermosensitive recording layer has a thickness of 10 μm and the protective layer has a thickness of 2 μm. Provided. (Composition of coating material for reversible thermosensitive recording layer) 20 parts by weight of vinyl chloride-vinyl acetate copolymer (manufactured by VYHH UCC)-Organic low molecular weight substance 10 parts by weight of behenic acid 3 parts by weight of sebacic acid-Solvent Tetrohydrofuran 50 Parts by weight Ethylene cellosolve 50 parts by weight (Composition of protective layer coating) ・ Ionizing radiation curable resin Urethane acrylate resin (bifunctional) 50 parts by weight ・ Isopropyl alcohol 50 parts by weight

The reversible thermosensitive recording layer 5
Is provided, the uneven characters 4 are formed using an embosser (DC9000 manufactured by Nippon Data Card Co., Ltd.) in order to form the uneven characters 4 by embossing on the card base material 2 to produce the decomposable card of Example 1. did.

Example 2 First, a biodegradable resin (trade name: Bionole) manufactured by Nippon Polyolefin Co., Ltd. was subjected to sheet processing by an extrusion molding machine at a resin processing temperature of 140 ° C. and an extrusion speed of 30 m / min. 0.1 mm transparent decomposable plastic sheets 7a and 7b were produced.
Next, 10 wt% of titanium is added to the biodegradable resin,
Degradable plastic sheets 3a and 3b having a thickness of 0.28 mm and having white color were produced in the same manner as described above.
Hereinafter, the degradable card of Example 2 was produced by the same production procedure as in Example 1.

<Comparative Example 1> In the degradable cards of the present invention of Examples 1 and 2 described above, each degradable plastic sheet made of a biodegradable resin, which is the card base body 2, was heated to a temperature of less than 50 ° C. A degradable card was prepared using a material that does not exhibit flexibility when heated. However, in order to compare this with a card that uses a material that exhibits flexibility even when heated to less than 50 ° C., a comparative example was used. One card was produced.

The card of Comparative Example 1 was processed by extruding a biodegradable resin (trade name: polycaprolactone) manufactured by Daicel Chemical Co., Ltd. using an extruder at a resin processing temperature of 120 ° C. and an extrusion speed of 30 m / min. Transparent decomposable plastic sheets 7a and 7b having a thickness of 0.1 mm were produced. Next, 10% by weight of titanium was added to the biodegradable resin, and white degradable plastic sheets 3a and 3b having a thickness of 0.28 mm were prepared in the same manner as described above. Hereinafter, the decomposable card of Comparative Example 1 was produced in the same procedure as in Example 1.

Next, the following evaluation items were tested for the three types of cards manufactured as described above, ie, Example 1, Example 2, and Comparative Example 1, in order to compare and evaluate the quality of the cards. Evaluation items ・ Emboss height (measured before and after transfer of colored ribbon) ・ Card warpage (measured before and after recording of thermal recording layer) ・ Emboss crack (immediately after the formation of protrusions, visually judge cracks in protrusions) For the measurement of card warpage, refer to J
The measurement was performed according to a measurement method based on IS X6301.
The colored ribbon was transferred by a rubber roller under the following conditions. Transfer temperature 120 ° C, transfer pressure 5kg
/ Cm ² , transfer time 3 seconds. The recording condition of the heat-sensitive recording layer was 8 dots / mm by a thermal head printer.
0.30mj / do using line type thermal head
An image was formed with an applied energy of t. Table 1 shows the test results.

[0033]

[Table 1]

From the test results shown in Table 1 above, the card of Comparative Example 1 in which the flexibility temperature of the card base material is lower than 50 ° C. is particularly different from Examples 1 and 2 of the present invention, especially in the embossed state after the transfer of the colored ribbon. It can be seen that the height of the card is low, so that the card is not suitable for a card having a specification of embossed uneven characters. Further, the card of Comparative Example 1 has a large warpage after recording on the heat-sensitive recording layer, which indicates that the cards of Examples 1 and 2 of the present invention have suitability. From the above results, it can be seen that the card of the present invention is suitable for a card having specifications in which uneven characters to be embossed are provided and a card in which a heat-sensitive recording layer is provided.

[0035]

As described above in detail, according to the degradable card of the present invention, even if the card is discarded in the natural world, each of the base materials constituting the card base body is decomposed in the natural world. Even if left untreated, the occurrence of pollution can be reduced, the adverse effect on the natural environment is less than conventional cards, and the card functions required for conventional cards, for example, letter,
The required specifications such as the provision of an embossed portion with unevenness of numerical information and the like, and the fact that at least a part of the card can be provided with a visible information display portion are also compared with the conventional vinyl chloride resin card. It is a degradable card that can provide a card of comparable quality and can be widely used in various fields and applications. Further, the decomposable card of the present invention requires less large-scale processing equipment for treating a discarded card as in the related art, and has a less adverse effect on the ground even when the discarded card is buried underground. Accordingly, the decomposable card of the present invention is, for example, a credit card, a cash card,
It can be widely used in card systems using various plastic cards such as cards.

[0036]

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a plan view showing one embodiment of a degradable card of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a sectional view of FIG.

FIG. 3 is a sectional view showing another embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is an exploded sectional view according to another embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Degradable card 2 Card base body 3 Degradable plastic sheet having white 3a Degradable plastic sheet having white 3b Degradable plastic sheet having white 4 Uneven characters 5 Reversible thermosensitive recording layer 6 Visible information display section 7a Transparent Degradable plastic sheet 7b Transparent degradable plastic sheet 8 Printing layer

Claims (6)

[Claims] A base material constituting a card base body (2) is made of a degradable plastic material that can be decomposed in nature, and at least a part of the card base body (2) is embossed with uneven characters ( (4) A degradable card characterized by being formed. 2. A base material constituting a card base body (2) is made of a degradable plastic material which can be decomposed in nature, and a visible information display part (6) is provided on at least a part of the card base body (2). A degradable card comprising: 3. The degradable card according to claim 1, wherein the base material constituting the card base body (2) is composed of a plurality of stacked base materials. 4. The degradable card according to claim 1, wherein the degradable plastic material is made of a biodegradable resin that can be decomposed by microorganisms. 5. The degradable card according to claim 1, wherein the degradable plastic material is made of a material that does not exhibit flexibility when heated at less than 50 ° C. 6. A visible information display section (6) comprising: a thermosensitive recording layer;
The degradable card according to any one of claims 2 to 4, comprising a reversible thermosensitive recording layer (5) and a magnetic recording display layer.