WATER
Water is the commonest and the most important of all chemical compounds. It is essential for all forms of life. Moreover, water is used for all sorts of industrial processes, and as one of the best and cheapest solvents.
In the graphic art industry, water is widely used as solvent in the preparation of reagents for different processes. It is the main constituent of lithographic dampening solutions, photographic developers and fixing bath solutions. It is used for making light-sensitive coatings and developers for lithographic plates. Water is used as a solvent in flexographic and gravure inks for publications and package printing. The water being used in these applications should be reasonably pure. However, the natural waters from various sources usually contain varied amounts of different impurities. Hence, it is essential to check the purity of the incoming water in the printing and other related industries.
Source of water : The main sources of natural water are : Rain water, River water, Well water and Sea water.
WATER & PRINTING INDUSTRY
In the printing industry, water is extensively used in the preparation of dampening solutions, photographic developer and fixing bath solutions, lithoplate developers, deep-etch coating solutions, etc. In all these applications, it is essential to use reasonably pure water; because the water usually contains varying amounts of dissolved salts such as that of calcium, magnesium, iron and manganese. Hence the direct use of raw water in industries can cause many adverse effects.
COLLOIDS IN PRINTING INDUSTRY
Gelatin, Gum Arabic, Egg Albumin, Cellulose Gum, Casein Glue, Emulsions (Water-in-oil emulsion and Oil-in-water emulsion), Gels, and Fish Glue are the colloids which are mostly using in the printing industry.
DYES AND PIGMENTS IN PRINTING INDUSTRY
Both dyes and pigments are the important chemicals, those are appear to be coloured because they absorb some wavelengths of light preferentially.
PHOTOGRAPHIC MATERIALS
The printing industry is becoming more and more dependent on the processes of photography. Most of the printing processes involve photography in image converting and platemaking. So some basic knowledge of the chemistry of photography is essential to understand these printing processes.
In photography, the films or papers coated with a light-sensitive emulsion are used. The base of photographic paper is made of special grade of paper.
German goldsmith Johann Gutenberg (1398 to 1468) was an inventor of the printing process. He was started his career in the small age of 13 years (1411) with his father. He was learning to manufacture the gold coins.During the learning process of manufacturing gold coin, he got an idea to get an impression on paper. Now that was the turning point of the invention.
It was the most important inventions in the history of humankind of fifteenth century (around 1448). His invention made possible the spread of knowledge to the common man. Before his invention most of the books were written by the hand!
Johann Gutenberg was lost everything in the journey of this invention. He is not only the inventor of the printing machinery, but he is the pioneer to help to spread the knowledge worldwide.
http://lemelson.mit.edu/resources/johann-gutenberg
How much is the printing industry worldwide ?
At the end of year 2018 the industry’s yearly turnover was $980* billion i.e. 98000* crores rupees as Indian currency. (*Figures can be varied as the source from the internet)
How and when the printing technology was started in India?
Printing industry first entered India from Goa. St. Ignatius of Loyola, in 1556, Father Gasper Caleza speaks of a ship carrying a printing press setting sail for Abyssinia from Portugal, to helping missionary work.
Started our journey in 1986 with Screen Printing, and continue developing with innovations like four color CMYK Printing in this type of manual/hand print process. Also print on any material and surface like Metal, Plastic, Acrylic, Glass and much more. We were also famous for the stickers gumming those decades.
