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FuturePrint Podcast
#235 Inkjet’s New Frontier: Transforming Coatings with Precision and Efficiency
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In this special episode of the FuturePrint Podcast, we explore the exciting intersection of inkjet technology and coatings with industry experts Holly Steedman (IST Intech), Matt Pullen (Meteor Inkjet), and Jochen Christiaens (ImageXpert). As they prepared for the European Coatings Show in Nuremberg, our guests discuss how inkjet technology is revolutionizing coatings applications by offering precision, efficiency, and sustainability advantages over traditional methods like spray and roller coating.
The conversation delves into the benefits of a collaborative approach, with these three companies working together to simplify the adoption of inkjet for manufacturers, formulators, and raw material providers. They also introduce the PrintPod, a compact system designed to help companies evaluate inkjet’s potential for their specific needs.
Tune in to discover how inkjet is being used in diverse industries such as automotive, aerospace, and renewable energy, and why now is the perfect time for businesses to explore digital deposition technologies. If you’re attending the European Coatings Show (Hall 4A, Stand 412), be sure to meet the team in person!
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Introduction to Collaborative Inkjet Initiative
Speaker 1Welcome to the FuturePrint podcast celebrating print technology and the people behind it.
Speaker 2Well, hi and welcome to this week's very special FuturePrint podcast special, because I've got three guests with me today and we're focusing really on. I guess we're looking at the coatings market, aren't we? And the idea, obviously, the European Coatings and Additives show is coming up in Nuremberg at the end of the month. We thought it'd be really good to hear from three of the participants who are working together on a project which is very exciting. I'm going to get them to introduce themselves and I'm going to start with Holly. Holly, would you introduce yourself? Holly, you're on mute. That's super. Thank you very much. It's all about technology. Over to you, holly.
Speaker 3Hi Fraser. Yeah, Thanks for starting the podcast off. Yeah, today we're. Today, we're here to talk about the ECS, which is the European Coating Show, and we're actually doing a collaboration stand between us and basically with the emphasis of introducing inkjet technology and enabling people to utilize inkjet technology also in coatings development. So we, we want to be the inkjet specialists at the european coating show so that people can come to us to find out how they can start that process. How can they, how they can start that journey? Um, so I'm my company is there, um ist in tech on the led curing side and we have meteor and image expert also taking place brilliant.
Speaker 2Thank you, holly. Um, if anyone who doesn't know holly, it's holly steedman. Holly, you are work, as you said, working for ist in tech in, who focus on curing systems and uv curing systems and UV curing systems. But you've been in the industry quite a long time, haven't you? So you've got a nice broad experience of the marketplace, particularly inkjet. I'm going to go over to Matt now and just get him to introduce himself. Matt is from Meteor. Matt, if you'd just intro yourself.
Speaker 4Hi, yeah, I'm Matthew Pullen from Meteor Inkjet. I'm hardware product manager for Meteor and for those who don't know Meteor, we're one of the leading producers of drive electronics and software for industrial inkjet systems. So we work with all the major printhead vendors drive electronics for more than 90 models of prinHead in all sorts of application spaces. So, yeah, meteor's role in this collaboration is providing the data path into the image expert system as a print prototype platform, but also to engage directly with OEMs. Looking at inkjet for industrial coating, you need digital addressability or variations in coat weight, with zero contact manufacturing processes and fully addressable data.
Speaker 2Great. Thank you, Matt. Appreciate that. And just finally, to introduce our final third speaker, it's Jochen Christians of well, Image Expert, now expert. Now Tell us a bit about your role.
Speaker 5Exactly yes, thanks, fraser. As a short introduction, first, jochen Christians is responsible for the European region with Image Expert, the company being based in Boston, the US, having been very strongly established in the past few decades in Europe, now obviously recognized a local person would be a good way forward in moving the market and moving especially collaborations with different partners, as we have it today planned for the European Coding Show, where I think it's a very good combination having these, these partners, with us on a booth, um, because, as holly pointed out, it's, it's really a collaboration of of experts, the inkjet and a lot of coating applications there, um, and it's it's um as matt uh introduced. Well, it's a deposition, it's placing coating stuff, non-contact processes and for ImageXpert, it's really down to observing and analyzing the process, the size of the drops, optimizing parameters and getting a process to work and giving our customers the tools at hand to work on that basically Yep makes sense.
Understanding Inkjet for Coating Applications
Speaker 2Let me take us back. So, as you said, the three companies that are in this partnership all go work together very much on inkjet projects to help anyone who's looking at using inkjet technology to deliver coating and ink whatever it might be and onto a material. Now I'm kind of interested because obviously you've chosen here as a group to go to the European Coating Show. What is it that you think you're going to see there in terms of the audience and what are you going to be talking to them about and what are you going to be saying to them in terms of the path that they might follow using inkjet technology? I'll start with Holly.
Speaker 3Yeah, fraser, I mean that's why we want to be there really, you know, is because we need to connect with these people from the beginning of the process, and the people that are going to be visiting the European Coating Show are the formulators, are the developers, and to make them aware of the possibilities, as well as the end users, is really important Because, you know, you have to connect with all parts of the value chain at the end of the day and we have to also support as an inkjet community. So what we want to do is we want to be speaking with the developers, we want to make sure that they've got the tools available and the partners to work with, and for us, us it just makes sense that we do that together rather than I be there talking about curing.
Speaker 3Yeah, someone be there talking about um, the formulation process. Someone be talking about the, the placement on the substrate, it. It just doesn't really make sense because at the end of the day, you know they've got to go to various different points of contact and, yeah, we're just trying to make it basically… An easier process …an easier process.
Speaker 2Yep.
Speaker 3Yeah, put on a united vibe also in that respect.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, I completely get it. I wanted just to clarify that because I think it's it's useful, for if you are from the coatings industry and you're listening to this podcast, you're kind of going okay, so, yeah, why, what's, what's the interest here and you know, just explaining a little bit more clearly for them, um, just just stepping back again and thinking more about the possible applications. So I'm interested to understand. The three of you coming together makes a lot of sense, but I really want to understand about how you will work together to explain to anyone from the coachings market how you work together and how it makes it easier talking to the three of you rather than individually. So just explain that to to the audience listening.
Speaker 4Okay, oh, yeah, I can go ahead. I mean it's me to your position where we're agnostic. Uh, I try and take the word ink out of inkjet when I engage with with customers that are looking at it as a technology platform. It's a controlled deposition of a material in a contactless process. So getting people to understand in a coatings application how they can select and evaluate a printhead technology to match their chemistry and substrate requirements. What are the levers that we have in industrial inkjet and UV curing systems that you don't have in an analog process? In addressability, in direction of print and cross web and how you can control material dosage are the key benefits and it's not fully understood, if you're coming from a purely analog background, just how addressable and easy that can be to implement.
Speaker 2Yeah, it makes sense. Holly, would you like to explain?
Speaker 3Yeah, I mean, that's what Matt said is basically, you know, we have to go back to basics. We're going back to the beginning, you know, and we have to. We start with obviously educating, which is why we want to, why we've got on display also a system you know to actually so people can actually visualize what that means and what that looks like, what that development process looks like. So we have the print pod on on the stand, which will feature all of our technologies to actually, you know, demonstrate what that, what that means, because, as matt said, you know, you, this might be a technology that people are not so familiar with. If you're, if you're a coatings developer who's been working primarily on a roller coating, or it could be some kind of dispense, other kind of dispense technology. It's a big learning curve.
Speaker 2So, yeah. It makes sense, Holly. It completely makes sense. I just want to pick up on where you guys may have worked with coaching companies before. Have either of any of you worked with coaching companies on projects before?
Speaker 5Absolutely.
Speaker 2Of course. So, jokern, explain what you've worked on and how that's kind of come about.
Print Pod: Making Inkjet Accessible
Speaker 5Yeah, it's got a link to the reason why being at ECS makes sense, because and both Matt and Holly pointed it out before as well, yeah, and it's got a link to the reason why being at ECS makes sense, and both Matt and Holly pointed it out before as well it's where people have their backgrounds and where they see there's a certain part of it moving towards contactless jetting processes to keep it in the widest range of definition.
Speaker 5But they're so new to the whole topic where it's very important for these formulators of liquids, let's say, to have a group of people who are very professional and who actually can guide them and inform them about every single step from a very early stage R&D position, where they will try to find out what's workable, what's doable, find kind of the tolerance areas and then move up to creating and establishing real-life production environment application tools. And that's where this whole setup actually works really good, because you're not just seeing formulators like ink manufacturers or coatings manufacturers moving towards a more digital application form, but you also see the raw material manufacturers, who are making up the largest chunk of this show, actually looking at how can I promote my raw material to my informal leader customer and tell them why product one is better than product four, and by actually using our combined systems they're able to actually validate their own raw material functionality.
Speaker 2Yeah, if that makes sense. Yeah, it makes sense.
Speaker 5Yeah, they also do their own R&D with it. They also compare development processes and find out oh, this worked differently than I expected, so I have to go back into my kitchen, rework it a little bit and then come out with something that works. So we see the supply chain moving a lot and that's why being at ECS is a very good opportunity really to give everybody the chance to really look at these factors.
Speaker 2Yeah, makes sense. Can I just ask you, matthew, just Meteor and what you've done? Have you worked on projects like this before? Absolutely.
Speaker 4Go on. You say yeah, when we talk about coatings, that can be functionalization. It can be a digital application of pre-treatments and surface treatments as well. It's not just something that ends up being the finished product. So, yeah, we work with a range of OEMs in all sorts of application spaces, from adding processes to your traditional print to the printing of batteries for automotive, to replacing, as Joachim mentioned, spray coating, a big coating application that's investing in digital.
Speaker 4Uh is is the paint sector in in automotive and aerospace. Uh um paints and adhesives, reducing waste by only dosing material precisely where you want it, in the exact quantity you need. Um is is a driving factor from those supply chains through to the machine builders and then onto the materials developers to help create jetable materials. And yeah, obviously this collaboration highlights in the print pod how accessible that can be and how accessible the right technical expertise and training can be to have low working volume. Materials evaluation for both qualitative and quantitative performance of the material, where you can in situ look at how does the material come out of a printhead, how does it land, wet, cure and film form on a tabletop system yeah, got it.
Speaker 2Um, and sorry, you mentioned the print pod. Is that? Is that something very specific to the event?
Economic Climate and Market Opportunities
Speaker 5just for anyone who's visiting yeah, yeah, exactly, I'm happy to address that. Thanks for the question. Um, the print pod is the smallest footprint print station that's recently launched by Intersexpert. It's a material design equipment that allows more or less those companies that we just addressed to dive into inkjet and then it offers an opportunity to research drop formation with a drop watching tool, where a liquid is jetted from a printhead any printhead in the market, using meteor electronics for that and then at the same time, in the same system, print and jet it onto a desirable substrate.
Speaker 5So this is a small print pot station, print station that will allow companies to investigate quickly and easily the workability, the functionality of a liquid, either be it the liquid they want to develop or the substrates that they might manufacture. There's many foils or plastics or glass manufacturers that also want to see how does an ink respond when it's printed onto my substrates. So also from that aspect it can be investigated. Looking at Holly's product with the curing, it helps to understand how does an ink cure, how does a foot initiator react when it's exposed to UV light intensities and how well does a formulation cure. So this allows all these things within that small footprint system.
Speaker 2Yep, holly, did you want to add anything there?
Speaker 3I wanted to go back to a little bit about what Matt was discussing about the different industries. I mean, that's also, you know, the point of this is also for us to have contact with those industries which we may not, in a classic application, shall we say, obviously come across on a day to day used to. Moving in, obviously it's aviation, it's automotive, um, yeah, renewable energies, even even broader than that. So some of these areas you know, we also need to learn about, um, obviously we've, we've all had projects that touch on these, but we all know how it is. Sometimes these projects we don't get that much information, you know, because we're a supplier. So it's also educating ourselves on on on these applications and the industries and making the right connections there, um, so I see that also is very important that we have a presence in in those markets more and more. So it goes both ways in the end.
New Applications and Industry Adoption
Speaker 2Yeah, I mean I tend to agree with you this is. It takes us right back to when we kind of came up with the imprint idea that these there are markets out there, manufacturing markets that don't necessarily understand inkjet or don't necessarily know how it can work for them necessarily understanding jet or don't necessarily know how it can work for them. So so it's part of that process of educating and the three of you together make it easier to educate rather than you being just one part of the puzzle. So I completely get that, um, and I think you know I would applaud it because I think it makes complete sense. I'm interested, um, just to pick up on this kind of topic. Current economic climate is quite difficult generally for lots of reasons. We've talked about it before the coatings world, which leads to the manufacturing world. How strong is this in the European space at the moment?
Speaker 3That's really dependent on the application.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, of course, but what's your sense generally? Are there markets, holly, that are particularly okay, robust at the moment, or, you know, are we all going to be suffering under the cloud of the american issues of the day? Jochen, you look like you wanted to say something.
Speaker 5Yeah, and I agree it depends on the application, but still there's quite a few industries that are very interesting in looking into using or applying inkjet technology, because of sustainability reasons as well.
Speaker 5If you compare spray coating with inkjet, it's a very uncontrolled process. Compared to inkjet, you lose a lot of materials, lots of waste. That's where we saw the inkjet applications for automotive coatings, where they do exactly that. They reduce process efforts, lots of costs, time waste and material waste. So there's lots of areas where still these things are investigated to optimize process, to shorten supply and chains, to make it more flexible, more quick and, at the same time, using the ability of inkjet in high resolution fine line definition. Using the ability of inkjet in high resolution fine line definition, we still see print electronics has been a very, very strong topic for us in the past several years. We still see lots of different areas being in different stages of research and engineering to pilot phase, growing up into a mature process, whereas we all know graphics has gone way from that into being a very established market where Injet's been used for a long time.
Speaker 2Yeah, I mean, jochen, that's really good to hear, isn't it? Because obviously there's a sense that other segments maybe are maturing or have matured or are not developing in the same way. So I guess what you guys are trying to do is inform and educate the market, aren't you? You're trying to say look, this is great technology, we will work together on the project to deliver the value for you. Um, don't go down necessarily one route where you look at one deliverer is you know, we work together, we know how to work together, we can help you fast track? Is that? Is that, in essence, what you're saying? Absolutely?
Speaker 4yeah good matthew, yeah, I mean that's the whole purpose is we'll have four companies on one stand. You have a touch point with each of them of where you need to fit within the supply chain to take pain points out of technology evaluation. And yeah, returning to Europe as a target market, it continues to be the bastion of industrial manufacture in the automotive sector in Germany, glass production in France, all these industries that have traditional coatings applied to add functionalization. They never stop. They never stop driving forward with their technology advancements, whether it's energy efficiency in manufacture or total cost of ownership in it and an energy efficiency in uh for the user of their product. Um. So those, those activities continue, um, and new spaces open up all the time. When someone walks the floor of a show and and sees live jetting and thinks I never thought about how I could put that material where I need it and triggers that, yeah, that's good to hear.
Speaker 4Particularly printing with robotics and modernisation of manufacturing is a big area of activity for Meteor. Yeah right, Print head and lamp on actuator to print or to coat exactly where you need to.
Speaker 2Yeah, and Jochen's point is right, isn't it? There's an efficiency, cost efficiency element here rather than coating spraying, but coating using inkjet, delivering much more efficiency yeah, and europe isn't a homogenized market.
The Right Time for Inkjet Technology
Speaker 4Uh, covid drove many uh markets to different, to more regionalized production and flexible, dynamic supply change. Uh, as we have fractions within uh legislation within the european union. Uh, changes in legislation meet drives changes in in chemistry and conformance, which then means people having to reformulate, re-engineer their processes and therefore there's opportunities for us to support them in meeting compliance and coming up with innovations.
Speaker 2So what you're basically saying is quite a lot of drivers that continue to validate what you guys are doing and looking at new markets or not new markets, but markets that still you want to educate about the value of inkjet.
Speaker 4Absolutely. Yeah, we average 11 new customers a month that are looking at inkjet for some new process. Very a few number of them are in traditional print replacing, replacing flex over digital. Yeah, increasingly it's it's uh using inkjet for its uh addressability of deposition for something.
Speaker 2Yeah, matt just get. I mean, that's interesting point and and actually I don't think many people will necessarily know, and that's quite nice to hear you know we've got 11 new customers on average per month. So of that 11, you know what types of markets are they coming from.
Speaker 4Yeah, you can mention printed electronics. Medical like lab-on-chip applications, precision dosage of materials. Medical, like lab on chip applications, precision dosage of materials, yeah. Coat coatings, uh. Replacing paints, uh, and and varnishes that are spray coated or or pad printed, uh, with contactless, with digital, yeah, so it's anything you can imagine where you need to use a printhead as a micropump, not just a way of transferring a graphic to an object.
Speaker 2That's really good to hear, really good to hear. Holly, did you want to add anything there? Obviously, you're also looking at lots of different markets.
Speaker 3I can echo also that. I mean LED curing is also very mature in graphical applications, and so we see the same trends. We see people coming with. You know, it could be a coating in a part of a battery manufacturing process, it could be an adhesive in part of a medical device. So it's the same trend. Some of them aren't always inkjet, because obviously, yeah, we can also cover other applications to be coatings for, to be cured.
Speaker 3But it's just, it's the same trend, people, and I think it's a timing. It's a timing uh thing, like everything in the world. I think it's right place, right time. I think now everything's coming together. You know, as Matt mentioned, it's topics that people are now considering, which makes them look further afield for a solution.
Speaker 2Holly, just let me ask you. So you make the point about timing and I think it would be interesting to hear why do you think the timing is now?
Speaker 3I think it's a combination of maturity of the technology. I think we've all done a good job in educating people. Obviously we can improve on that, but I think we're all good advocates for Inkjet. We've spread the word, we've got you know organizations like yourself who are putting on events in new markets and new applications in in new markets and new applications. Yeah it's. I think it's the the emphasis on sustainability, whether that's controversial or not, whether it's the right thing or not is another, another conversation but?
Speaker 2but it's about efficiencies, isn't it? Regardless of it being about trees and and it's the earth, it's about efficiency in your business, isn't?
Speaker 3it, it's processed, it's optimizing the process and I think you know this is you know in germany especially companies have to change, otherwise they won't, they won't be able to keep up with with um competitors from from other regions absolutely they need to use, they need, they need to optimize their manufacturing process, they need to reduce the costs, otherwise they're not competitive anymore.
Speaker 3So all these things, I think, add, you know, come to a point now in the in the last years and really get people thinking about how to improve that process, optimize it yeah, jokin.
Speaker 2Did you want to add any final point there?
Speaker 5Yeah, I was just thinking about the time going back like 20, 25 years, 30 years I don't know where Injet got started and when when screen printing was like this is never going to work. How are you going to shoot a drop to a substrate? And now Matt used a very nice word it's more than just printing. It's a pump, it's a means. Inxet is a means to actually move a liquid from one location to the other and it's doing a lot more than it used to do just printing nice graphics. So we're seeing a lot of industries, a lot of applications, moving towards this type of application or technology. Let's say and it's where we're often, like Holly said, we've been doing a good job in the last few decades promoting the technology and placing it in the right locations so that people become more and more in micro-dosing or in graphics printing or just putting processes on its heads. So they have to rethink the standards.
Speaker 2Let's say Listen, guys, we're just coming to the end, really. Let's say listen guys. Um, we're just coming to the end, really. Uh, I just want to, for anyone who's listening to this, um, just to remind them that you guys are going to be at the european coatings event in nuremberg, um, and that you'll be together.
Speaker 5Any of you got the stand number yeah, that's going to be hall 4a and the stand number is 412. Brilliant.
Speaker 2Thank you, jochen, for that. Holly, matt, jochen, thank you very much for giving us your time Really interesting, and I know that we were picking up on. You know coachings, but I wanted to dig a bit deeper to find out why you as a group come together. It's so important for helping us move the industry forward, because I think that's the key, really, isn't it? So thank you to all of you Really appreciate it and, as we said, if anyone's attending the event, it's a chance to go over and have a chat with Jochen, holly and Matt. Thank you, guys. Thank you.
Speaker 5Thank you very much, Fraser.
Speaker 1Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, you can subscribe now for more great audio content coming. Thank you very much, Fraser.
