thermal inkjet printers have good strengths in printing packaging, and their technical aspects are highly in line with market requirements. According to the Smithers 2023 report, the application of hot foaming technology in the global packaging and printing market accounts for 34%, with an annual growth rate of 9.2%, and the essential strengths are defined in material flexibility, production efficiency and cost control. For example, the hot foam nozzle can be run steadily at 120 ° C and can be used with water-based, UV and food-grade inks of viscosity 1-50 cP to meet the FDA’s migration limit for direct contact food inks (≤0.01mg/kg). In 2022, Unilever implemented HP’s PageWide T250 series thermal foaming equipment in its ice cream packaging production line, with a print speed of 100 meters per minute, three times more efficient than conventional flexo printing, and 12-color synchronous printing at 300×600 DPI resolution. Color tolerance ΔE≤1.5, the same as the Pantone authentication standard.
Thermal foaming technology in the variable data printing sector can enhance the accuracy of barcode printing to ±25 microns, with less than 0.001% error rate. When P&G launched Canon ColorStream 8000 series hot-foam printers in 2023, the success rate of promotional packaging QR code scanning increased from 92% to 99.8%, and it supported 500 individual design switches per batch, and the version changing time was reduced from 45 minutes to 90 seconds. The printer utilizes on-demand droplet technology (DOD), and the size of the droplet can be dynamically adjusted (3-35 cul) to achieve 98% adhesion of the ink on corrugated paper’s surface, reducing penetration losses by 15% over solvent-based inkjet. Annual consumable cost of one production line of packaging firms that apply thermal foaming technology is reduced by $120,000, and since 72% less time is spent on the delivery period for short version orders (≤5,000 pieces) due to the fact that no plate making process exists,
Environmental compliance is also obtained as the thermal inkjet printer consumes merely 0.05kWh/m2, which is 89% lower than that of intaglio printing. After the implementation of the EU Single-Use Plastics Directive in 2021, Coca-Cola entirely replaced hot foaming machines to apply labels to PET bottles using labels in European factories, reduced the VOC emissions of water-based ink from 120g/m³ to 5g/m³, and controlled the amount of waste liquid to 0.3L/hour by a closed-loop ink supply system. In pharma packaging, Thermo Fisher uses the Epson SurePress hot foam solution to print cold chain labels, which increases the low temperature resistance to -80 ° C, and the curing time of the ink is 0.8 seconds, 40% more energy efficient compared to UV inkjet. It must be noted that the market share of thermal foaming equipment in flexible packaging printing has increased from 19% in 2020 to 37% in 2023, and its nozzle life can reach up to 1.8 billion jets (about 3 years of continuous production), and the maintenance cost is 55% less than piezoelectric type.
Market figures support the economics of the technology – thermal foam printers cost between $80,000 – $150,000 per machine, and the investment payback is just 14 months. International Paper’s 2022 annual financial report shows that after 30 thermal foaming machines were installed, its North American packaging business profit margin increased by 2.3 percentage points, thanks mainly to the utilization rate of materials improved from 82% to 95%, while the rate of defective products reduced from 1.8% to 0.2%. With the trend of intelligent packaging, thermal foaming technology also has the ability to integrate conductive ink print RFID tags, 50 micron line width precision, ±3% resistance tolerance control, and help Walmart supply chain increase the efficiency of single item tracking by 40%. Such figures tell us that hot-foam inkjet printers are transforming the value chain of the packaging industry.