Title
Investigation of solvent retention in gravure printed cardboard packaging
Authors
ELIZA ANGELI and ROZALIA SZENTGYORGYVOLGYI

Published Volume 49 Issue 7-8 July-August
Keywords gravure printing, moisture content, solvent retention, evaporation, gas chromatography

Abstract
The presence of residual solvents in gravure printed paper packaging might change the taste and flavour of the packed products. In order to avoid off-flavour and off-taste effect, solvent retention values must be kept under the maximum tolerance and consequently, there is a need to identify fast and aqurate methods to measure solvent retention in gravure printed packaging materials. In this study, the influence of moisture content on solvent retention in gravure printed packaging board was studied by the gas chromatography technique. Folding boxboard (FBB) samples with different moisture content have been printed by rotogravure and then solvent retention was measured at four different time intervals. Ethanol and ethyl acetate, which are considered as critical solvents in gravure printing, were studied for individual and total solvent retention and the results have been compared with the specified tolerances in every time interval. It has been found that the decrease of board moisture content results in a decrease of absorbed solvent simultaneously with an increase of solvent evaporation dynamics. Consequently, moisture content has a notable effect on cellulose based cartonboard solvent retention and has to be considered as a remarkable variable in solvent retention analysis.