At Wikoff Color, we recognize that consistent printing quality isn’t as simple as ‘click and print.’ We understand the challenges and we want to be in the pressroom trenches with you every step of the way. For this reason, we’ve enhanced and expanded our analytical testing capabilities to ensure we can provide you with comprehensive support from formulating to recycling bin end-of-life. Here are a few of the ways Wikoff can support your operations.

To optimize your printing operations, we can test for physical attributes such as:

Viscosity– Wikoff Color has top of the line rheometers to accurately determine the viscosity of ink and coating batches. These allow us to achieve extremely tight specs on our inks, leading to products that perform consistently batch to batch, site to site, and year to year.

Facts to know:

• Zahn cups are substantially less accurate than either viscometers or rheometers.
• Ambient temperatures, Zahn cup used, and user handling substantially affect the accuracy of Zahn cup readings.

Surface Energy and Polarity% – Using a Drop Shape Analyzer (goniometer) Wikoff Color can assess non-absorbent stocks to determine the total surface energy (dyne) and the polarity component. These tests help determine wettability and adhesion compatibility for the ink or coating to be applied.

Facts to know:

• Goniometers provide a much higher accuracy than dyne pens (which depend heavily on the skill of the user)
• Polarity (not assessed by dyne pens) is critical to achieving proper adhesion.
• Low surface energy can lead to lack of ink wetting.
• High polarity can lead to lack of adhesion, due to water adsorption.
• Corona treatment adds to both the total surface energy and the polarity. However, it doesn’t last long. Stock needs to be used in a timely fashion after treatment, or it will ‘relax’ back to where it started.

Coefficient of Friction (COF)– This testing allows assessment of machinability of prints. High COF or low COF prints may not flow through the equipment properly, leading to prints being destroyed, machines being clogged, and other miseries. Wikoff Color provides tight COF specs to help our customers run our products without having to stop and troubleshoot machining.

Rub Testing– This test determines if inks or coatings have proper adhesion for the application, or rub off under conditions of use.

How Wikoff can help:

• With our formulations expertise and industry leading tight specs, Wikoff is able to provide products that are dialed in to your press, leading to non-stop printing performance. We don’t ask you to adjust to the ink, we adjust the ink to you.
• Wikoff can assess your stock to ensure inks will wet and adhere to it.
• Through COF optimization, we can ensure your prints machine properly, slip when they’re supposed to slip, and sit when they’re supposed to sit.

Confirming regulatory compliance throughout product development is critical to successfully bringing new products to the marketplace. For this reason, Wikoff Color provides all the testing needed to confirm your products meet or exceed your regulatory requirements. Common compliance tests include:

Proposition (Prop) 65-This refers to California’s regulation of an extensive list of industrial chemicals. These change frequently. Companies selling in the USA typically have to meet these requirements if their products are sold countrywide.

Important Concepts:

1. Labeling- Proposition 65 does not limit the use of chemicals. It requires labeling if the limits are not met. To avoid labeling products as carcinogens, it becomes an unofficial requirement to get below Prop 65 chemical limits.

2. No significant Risk Level (NSRL)- Some Prop 65 chemicals have been tested to assess exposure limits (1 µg/day for example) before requiring labeling.

How Wikoff can help:

• Wikoff Color is capable of quantifying virtually all Prop 65 chemicals to NSRLs.
• We’re happy to offer consultations by phone or video chat.
• We can facilitate third party lab testing for final regulatory approval.

Migration Testing- With health and safety top priorities for food packaging, ensuring that harmful materials don’t end up transferring from the packaging into food is critical. Thankfully, the FDA, EuPIA, and other international bodies provide limits for this transfer to keep food safe. Assessing the transfer of packaging materials into packaged food is called migration testing.

Important concepts:

1. Direct Food Contact – Products intended to be directly in contact with the food they package. For example, the interior coating of a french-fry container.
2. Indirect Food Contact-This refers to products on food packaging but not directly in contact. For example, an ink printed on the exterior of a frozen food bag.
3. Functional Barrier- A material between ink, coating, and food that prohibits transfer of ink/coating into food. Plastics are almost never functional barriers (unless extremely thick, or specifically designed for the application). Aluminum and glass are examples of strong functional barriers, as most things cannot migrate through them.
4. Setoff Migration-The transfer of materials from indirect printed inks to the food contact side of the substrate during reroll of the substrates post-print.

How Wikoff can help:

• Wikoff has subject matter experts trained to help provide sound regulatory guidance and recommendations based on the customers unique packaging designs and end-use applications.
• Wikoff R&D team can now perform almost all migration tests simulating how the packaging is to be used. Our methods are well developed and highly accurate.
• Wikoff Color performs numerous migration tests during development to ensure the final product both prints robustly and meets your compliance needs.
• Our experts love offering phone and video chat consultations, ensuring our customer’s get exactly what they need.
• Wikoff Color can also facilitate submissions to validated 3^rd party testing labs.

Other – We are capable of approaching many other regulatory problems, including EPA 24 VOCs, contaminant quantitation, etc.

Brand owners care about the recyclability of their products. Wikoff’s experts can guide and assist you through the process of having your products recognized as part of the circular economy.

How Wikoff can help:

1. Wikoff can do Association of Plastic Recycling (APR) testing internally during product development, and at times for final recognition.
2. Offering phone and video chat consultations to directly connect our experts with you.

Wikoff Color will help your business succeed by offering support for the entire lifecycle of your prints, from ideation to recycling end-of-life. Our analytical services combined with expert formulators will help you achieve robust non-stop print performance, leading to higher quality prints, less downtime, and greater profits. Wikoff doesn’t ask you to adjust to the ink, we adjust the ink to you. Contact analyticalservice@wikoff.com today so our team can help you reach your optimal performance.