Second digital print revolution

‘It’s good to be back,’ declares Benny, chairman and CEO. ‘Our Nanographic printing process is the result of ten years of nanotechnology research. It’s a true breakthrough that achieves amazing results.’

According to the company, Nanographic printing presses offer the versatility of digital with the qualities and speed of offset printing at an unmatched cost-per-page.

At the heart of the process is NanoInk. Comprised of pigment particles only tens of nanometres in size (a human hair is about 100 000 nanometres wide), these nano-pigments are extremely powerful absorbers of light and enable unprecedented image qualities.

The process, trade-marked Landa Nanographic Printing, is characterised by ultra-sharp dots of extremely high uniformity, high gloss fidelity and, it’s claimed, the broadest CMYK colour gamut of any printing process.

The Landa Nanographic Printing process creates images of remarkable abrasion and scratch resistance. Most notably, it can print on any off-the-shelf substrate, from coated and uncoated papers to recycled cartonboard, and from newsprint to plastic packaging films, without the need for pre-treatment or special coating and without the need for post-drying. Adding to this cost benefit is the fact that Nanographic images are only 500 nanometres thick – that’s about half the thickness of offset images – enabling NanoInk to produce the lowest cost-per-page digital images in the industry. All of this from a water-based, energy-efficient and eco-friendly process.

Landa Nanographic presses employ ink ejectors to create the digital images that are applied to the substrate in an extremely high-speed process. Each Landa press, which has an exceptionally small footprint even compared to other digital presses, can print in up to eight colours at 600 or 1 200dpi resolution.

‘Nanography is a truly ground-breaking development,’ states Benny. ‘At drupa, we’ll unveil a complete family of sheetfed and web presses. These include B3, B2 and B1 sheetfed perfecting presses that operate at up to 11 000 sheets/hour for commercial and packaging printing, and web presses for publishing and flexible packaging ranging from 520mm to 1 040mm wide and operating at up to 200m/min. Such performance places Landa Nanographic presses squarely in the heart of mainstream commercial printing. For the first time, commercial printers don’t have to choose between the versatility and short-run economics of digital printing and the low cost-per-page and high productivity of offset printing. Now they can have both.’

The Landa family of six Nanographic presses will be of interest to commercial printers for printing books, magazines and direct mail, and to packaging converters for applications such as labels, folding cartons and flexible packaging.

Theatre presentations

At drupa, Benny Landa will host each of the company’s five daily theatre presentations in its 300-seat auditorium at the heart of Landa’s 1 400m2 stand, the largest ever for a first-time drupa exhibitor. The presentations, entitled ‘Nano. Bigger Than You Think’, will provide visitors with a tour of Nanography – the technology, the products and the opportunity – as well as insights into the future of our industry.