Melbourne-based anilox roller manufacturer Laserlife needs no introduction, being a longterm manufacturer for the printing industry for more than 50 years.
Managing Director Alex Engel has had a history of supplying rollers to both wide-web and narrow-web converters for around 30 of those years, but always knew there had to be a better surface to reduce damage and wear and tear.
Enter Tiaurum, a brand-new exciting breakthrough, pioneered by Laserlife and one of Australia’s most prestigious technical associations. Alex has been so impressed with the new roller that he has established a new entity called Kinetic Elements to manufacture and market the roller in Australia and overseas.
Alex outlined Tiaurum’s story for “Labels Plus”: “We developed the new technology about five years ago, and it was a case of re-inventing the anilox from ground-up. We started by comparing conventional anilox rollers and what were the customer demands from that roller?
Then, by working with a scientific organisation we developed a totally-new technology. We spent three years working closely with them doing the research and we gave them ‘open-slather’ to come up with their own ideas.”
He said the new roller is made from titanium and as Australia is rich in titanium – first or second titanium-rich country in the world – the project dovetailed with a “light metals initiative” to encourage new uses and manufacturing with these natural resources.
“Titanium is pretty-much an ideal material,” said Alex. “It oxidises so fast that it won’t corrode; it is very chemicallystable and is used for in-body uses like hip joints and the like.
It’s a very environmentally-friendly material, and using our own laser technology, we can convert the surface from Alex outlined Tiaurum’s story for “Labels Plus”: “We developed the new technology about five years ago, and it was a case of re-inventing the anilox from ground-up. We started by comparing conventional anilox rollers and what were the customer demands from that roller?
Then, by working with a scientific organisation we developed a totally-new technology. We spent three years working closely with them doing the research and we gave them ‘open-slather’ to come up with their own ideas.”
He said the new roller is made from titanium and as Australia is rich in titanium – first or second titanium-rich country in the world – the project dovetailed with a “light metals initiative” to encourage new uses and manufacturing with these natural resources.
“Titanium is pretty-much an ideal material,” said Alex. “It oxidises so fast that it won’t corrode; it is very chemicallystable and is used for in-body uses like hip joints and the like.
It’s a very environmentally-friendly material, and using our own laser technology, we can convert the surface from “We’ve done some OEM work for Japanese companies, and actually entered that market while we were still doing the research,” said Alex. “And knowing that the market there is generally slow to take up new technologies, we moved into that fairly early. It’s now working well in the market. In press trials we ran, we could make a hard chrome roller show signs of wear-out, but on the Tiaurum and ceramic examples, we could not wear them out. Our trial run was of 1500km with steel doctor blades.”
“We have proved that it’s really good for printers; it is environmentally-friendly; it releases ink better, so you get better ink density. It’s more cost-efficient to manufacture, so there is direct saving that we can pass on to customers. We want to be able to compete with the Chinese market. Ceramic anilox rollers have become more of a commodity driven by price. And if you are an unscrupulous supplier, then you can take short cuts and the customer will never know. But we still offer a three-year warranty on our ceramic rollers against wear and workmanship, so we never take short cuts. But that of course, means a price differential in the marketplace. And it’s hard for customers to clearly evaluate benefits side-byside”.
Alex said since releasing the new roller into the market, the response has been very positive with most customers noticing better ink density and faster wash ups. “We’re talking only up to 400 lines per inch at this stage, which is the limitation of the way the cell structures are created, so we are actually looking at non-conventional cell structures for this technology as well.
“Tiaurum is totally environmentally-friendly, and that’s very positive for the industry. We can recycle the titanium – though there is nobody fully set-up to do that at this stage – it is possible to fully recycle the waste material. Which is going to be massive in Europe. Europe is trying to phase out hard chrome, so it’s a potential replacement to any hard chrome application.
“For me, the new roller is the future. We have done market research around the world as best we can on anilox volumes, and can calculate how much ceramic powder is being used, and of course, Chrome Oxide sprays at best 50% deposit efficiency, meaning 50% of what is sprayed goes to waste. It is also potentially carcinogenic which means handling the waste material is also an issue. And we don’t know how is it being disposed of. In America, Europe, and Australia it may be handled properly, but maybe in Eastern Europe and Asia, it isn’t.
So it would be a nice add-on to be part of eliminating something that is bad for the environment.”