• Journal of Korea Technical Association of The Pulp and Paper Industry
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• v.40 no.5
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• pp.60-69
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• 2008

The principal reasons for applying a pigment coating to paper are to improve appearance and printability. The pigment coating provides a surface that is more uniform and more receptive to printing ink than are the uncoated fibers and, in turn, both facilitates the printing process and enhances the graphic reproduction. The improvement in print quality is readily apparent, especially in image areas or when multiple colors are involved. Although pigment coating of paper is to improve the printability, coated paper is not completely free from printing defects. Actually there are a number printing defects that are observed only with the coated papers. Among the printing defects that are commonly observed for coated papers, print mottle during multi-color offset printing is one of the most concerned defects, and it appears not only on solid tone area but also half dot print area. There are four main causes of print mottle ranging from printing inks, dampening solution, paper, and printing press or its operation. These indicates that almost every factors associated with lithographic printing can cause print mottle. Among these variation of paper quality influences most significantly on print mottle problems in multicolor offset printing, and this indicates that paper is most often to be blamed for its product deficiency as far as print mottle problems are concerned. Furthermore, most of the print mottle problems associated with paper is observed when coated papers are printed. Uncoated papers rarely show mottling problems. This indicates that print mottle is the most serious quality problems of coated paper products. Overcoming the print mottle is becoming more difficult because the operating speeds of coating and printing machines are increasing, coating weights are decreasing, and the demands on high-quality printing are increasing. Print mottle in offset printing is caused by (a) nonuniform back trap of ink caused by a nonuniform rate of ink drying, referred as "back trap mottle, and (b) nonuniform absorption of the dampening solution. Furthermore, both forms of print mottle have some relationship to the structure of the coated layer. The surest way of eliminating ink mottling is to eliminate unevenness in the base paper. Coating solutions, often easier to put into practice, should, however, be considered. In this paper the principal factors influencing print mottle of coated papers will be discussed. Especially the importance of base paper roughness, binder migration, even consolidation of coating layers, control of the drying rate, types of binders, etc. will be described.

• Journal of Korea Technical Association of The Pulp and Paper Industry
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• v.39 no.1 s.119
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• pp.25-29
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• 2007

Print mottle is the spotty and cloudy appearance of the ink on the substrate. Print mottle is influenced significantly by the characteristics of the paper with regard to homogeneity of its structure and its coating. The print mottle can be counteracted, in particular by altering the absorption characteristics of the inks, by changing sequence in which the inks are printed, or by using a advanced coated paper. In this study, we investigated the effect of ink dispersion to the print mottle through trial printing test and also analyzed the correlation between properties of coated paper and subjective results by statistic method. The result of this study is expected to be applied the basic data to solve the problem of printing mottle.

• Journal of Korea Technical Association of The Pulp and Paper Industry
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• v.39 no.2 s.120
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• pp.17-24
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• 2007

PEA(Print Evenness Analyzer) Module can be utilized as a tool to evaluate print mottle. The tester is de-signed to measure the uniformity of liquid penetration into paper at very short contact time. To evaluate effects of base paper properties on print mottle, the experiments were performed with 3 types of base pa-per whose sizing degree, roughness and porosity were varied. Coated papers were produced with high solid coating color (70%) and low solid coating color (67%). Uniformity of water absorption into base paper and coated paper was measured with PEA. It was found that, in order to minimize print mottle, base paper shall be produced with a high sizing degree and low roughness and the concentration of coating color shall be kept as high as possible, providing that it has proper rheology properties for coating process.

• Journal of the Korean Graphic Arts Communication Society
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.139-150
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• 2004

Development of the paper coating technologies to prevent print mottle is needed to obtain high quality printing. Printing mottle is recognized as the most common printing problems in using coated paper and which is one of the most difficult problems to solve in offset printing. Print mottle is one of the most important quality properties of printed products and manufacturers strive to improve the paper surface to gain higher and more even print mottle. The prevention of printed mottle requires of coating color formation, especially the minimum of binder migration. The results the uniformity of liquid absorption by paper at very short contact time between paper and testing printing liquids.

• Journal of Korea Technical Association of The Pulp and Paper Industry
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• v.39 no.2 s.120
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• pp.31-37
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• 2007

Lithography like off-set printing is processed using the repellent properties between water and oil, so all inks for off-printing must work with dampening solution(water). The dampening water may cause the emulsification of ink by the printing pressure in the printing nip. This study aimed to investigate the effect of emulsified inks on print mottle. The cyan ink was emulsified artificially with the different IPA(isopropyl alcohol) content in this study. We evaluated the print mottle by densitometer and image analysis method. The print mottle phenomenon was directly affected by IPA content. The emulsification of inks also had an influence on flow properties of inks and it increased ink transfer rate. It, however, caused low ink density. Moreover the emulsified inks were spreaded to around dots and cause the thinning density on the non-printing area like print mottle. The trial printing showed that the emulsified inks also cause scumming on the printing result with little mistake of adjusting dampening solution and mostly decreasing dot reproduction. We could, therefore, find out the obvious effect of emulsified inks on print mottle.

• Journal of the Korean Graphic Arts Communication Society
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.1-13
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• 2008

Printed mottle of coated paper is one of the most common phenomenon and the most difficult problem in offset printing. Offset printing is processed mainly processed by the attractive properties between water and oil, so all inks for off-printing must work with dampening solution(water). It may cause the emulsion on the printing nip from the printing pressure. This study aimed to investigate the effect of emulsified inks on print mottle from emulsified cyan ink by force with each different IP A contents. We measured the print mottle by densitometer and image analysis method. The emulsified inks also give effect to now properties of inks and it caused more ink transfer rate, however, it caused low density of inks. Moreover the emulsified inks were spreaded to around of dots and cause the thinning density on the non-printing area like print mottle. The results showed that the emulsified inks also cause scumming on the printing result with little mistake of adjusting dampening solution and mostly decreasing dot reproduction. So we could find out the obvious effect of emulsified inks to print mottle.

• Proceedings of the Korea Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry Conference
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• 2000.04a
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• pp.103-110
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• 2000

This study was done in order to increase production speed using coater dryer in maximum capacity without print mottle. The aim of this study was to measure coating color immobilization content(CCIC) and to decrease CCIC through coating color optimization. The final goal of this study was the prevention of print mottle in maximum drying condition by CCIC control. As a result the measuring method of CCIC was set by brightness transition and the effective factors in pigments and binders were defined. With color optimization considered this factors, CCIC was decreased by 4%. Through this CCIC decrease and modification of coater utility, the print mottle was prevented even though using coater dryer in maximum.

• Journal of Korea Technical Association of The Pulp and Paper Industry
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.60-68
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• 1997

To develop paper coating technology for preventing print mottling, which is recognized as the most common printing problems in using coated papers, ink absorption properties of various coated papers were examined by employing K 8T N and Croda ink absorption tests. The influences of pigment compositions, coat weights and drying methods on these ink absorption properties were examined, and then the variations of ink absorption ratio were analyzed and discussed. It is demonstrated that the variation of Croda ink absorption ratio induced by coat weight variation can be utilized most succesfully to predict print mottling propensity of coating formulations. A systematic analysis approach was suggested that can be employed in the development of the most desirable coating color formulation to achieve target optical properties with the least print mottling.

• Proceedings of the Korea Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry Conference
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• 2011.10a
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• pp.443-453
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• 2011

This study was carried out in order to elucidate effects of types of binder used in pre-coated layer on optical properties and printability of top-coated layer. Coated papers with four different types of SB latex were prepared. Tg, particle size and gel contents of latices were of different. Optical properties and printability of coated paper including print mottle were evaluated. It was confirmed that properties of pre-coated layer distinctively affected final properties of top-coated layer. Tg was found to be the most influencing factor on the print mottle of coated paper: the SB latex with lower Tg and higher particle size resulted in a superior print mottle. These results indicate that final printability and properties of top-coated layer can be controlled by adjusting pre-coated layer.

• Journal of the Korean Graphic Arts Communication Society
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.143-159
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• 2005

The printing could not expect the print effect of the specific character of a printing material. Specially, a property of the paper that we are aware of the substrate has controled printability as well as run ability. The objective of this study was to measure substrate properties by measuring the water receptivity in order to know the degree of the uniformity on surface of paper. Therefore, the water receptivity was measured by fluid bridge method. And then the physical properties of samples such as ink set-off, porosity and print mottle of domestic coated papers were measured by Tappi method. Accordingly, this study obtained the outcome of water receptivity. And then we could know that the relations between water receptivity and physical properties of the paper samples have correlations. There are many measurement equipments to find out print mottle by the measurement of the reflected density at this point in time. However, it is thought that the fluid bridge method is the most proper way to find out print mottle, though there are many other ways to figure out.