Post Date: August 23, 2023

Markoprint® Inks for Glass Packaging

Glass packaging has been around for over 100 years and is still a staple on grocery store shelves. Pickles and olives come to mind as products that will always use glass jars for their containers. The beer, wine, and spirit markets also use glass bottles for most of their products.

Using glass packaging should be determined by the product that will be held within. For example, the acidity of pickle juice wouldn’t do well in plastic.  Glass is not only a standard in the food industry, but also in some non-food industries as well. The cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries use glass to protect sensitive creams and expensive drugs that need to be protected from outside elements. The spirits industry uses glass to evoke a premium experience.

Some of the benefits of glass packaging include:

  • Glass is nonporous and impermeable – Because of this, it does not absorb flavors or smells. There are no interactions between glass packaging and the final product. This makes it perfect for sensitive products.
  • Has an almost zero rate of chemical interactions – This helps to ensure that the final product inside the glass container keeps its efficacy, taste, aroma, and flavor longer.
  • Made from natural materials – Glass is manufactured using superheated sand, soda ash, and  limestone taken from the earth.
  • FDA has designated it as fully safe – With no ability to leach chemicals when exposed to hot or cold temperatures, glass is 100% FDA approved for a variety of applications.
  • Glass is 100% recyclable – Glass is easier to recycle than plastic. Almost every piece of glass you encounter has a portion of recycled material in it, making it an environmentally friendly option.
  • Can be recycled infinitely – Glass can always be crushed and reused in new glass products. Most glass manufacturing companies have a minimum of recyclable material to help make a positive environmental impact and keep costs down.

Markoprint® offers a variety of solvent and UV-LED inks for glass and other non-porous substrates.  The ink comes in self-contained 45si cartridges from Hewlett-Packard. The inks print alphanumeric characters and barcodes up to 12.5 mm tall, or multiple printheads can be combined to print larger codes.

  • IC2008 UV-LED Black Ink – is cured under irradiation by a UV-LED lamp.  This ink has strong adhesion and resistance against Isopropanol compared to solvent-based ink.
  • IC2009 UV-LED White ink – is cured under irradiation by a UV-LED lamp. This ink has strong adhesion and resistance against Isopropanol compared to solvent-based ink.
  • IC1980 Solvent Black ink – is capable of printing on aluminum, blister foil, films and other non-porous substrates with high rubbing resistance.  IC1980 achieves dark coding, dry without a heater or curing lamp.

To test our inks on one or more of your packaging substrates, contact AT Information Products by calling (201) 529-0202.  Or send a message to [email protected].