This month sees the launch of two revolutionary inks from Domino Printing Sciences, offering unique benefits to customers using its coding and marking technology across a wide range of sectors.

The team behind the launch is headed up by Andy Clifton, director of marking materials who, with his team of 32 people based at the company’s Bar Hill headquarters, is responsible for delivering ink and fluids products across Domino’s marking products range. He joined Domino six years ago and holds a PhD in Polymer Science.

“These inks have been in development for 12 months”, he said, “and then field-tested in ten trials around the world including the Middle East, Asia and Europe and in different industries too. It’s extremely important that we do this so that any minor issues can be addressed pre-launch.”

The marking materials team has grown significantly over the last four years from 20 people to its current headcount of 32. The team is instrumental to the development of the business and recruitment is underway at the moment to grow the team to 34 by the end of 2011.

The team includes 23 people in R&D, three in support, two in process and four in the advanced development technology function.

Clifton said: “Growth in our team has resulted from the increasing value of marking materials to our business. Even in challenging times, food and beverage markets are unaffected – and can even grow - as people continue to buy essentials in supermarkets and as they are not eating out as much, buy more pre-packaged foods.

“Also as the packaging world is changing, many customers are looking for new materials to achieve a lower weight so there are shifts towards film, plastic and  pouches. There is therefore a need for new ink products to use on a wider range of substrates.”

The new black ink for continuous printers is called 299BK and its development has been led by Josie Harries. 299BK has excellent adhesive properties for pouches and film wrapped products even on fast-moving lines, is also very reliable and can perform at high and low temperatures over long periods of time. It is particularly beneficial for industries using moulded plastics, the cosmetics industry and where pouches are being used for fluids such as yoghurt drinks.

The second ink is a solvent-based thermal ink – 107BK – which delivers high resolution printing of text and bar codes and will benefit the confectionery sector predominantly.

Delivering excellent drying performance, it has been designed for use on porous and non-porous card substrates. The development team for 107BK has been led by Julie Cross.

“Getting a new ink – or two - to launch is a real team effort,” says Clifton. “Development covers the early stage of creating new products, Support looks after customers, through our sales teams and distributors across the world and Process involves making sure the development process works and is integrated with other functions to bring the products to market.”

• PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS:  Andy Clifton, director of marking materials at Domino Printing Sciences