Pharmacy glass is used in hospitals, laboratories as well as medical products. Direct screen printing on articles for this industry, such as measuring markers, must be more resistant to wear than decorative applications.
Pharmacy glass has been used for many years, and has been decorated directly with screen printing since the early days of the industry. Today, producers of pharmacy glass perform direct screen printing as a secondary, necessary step of the manu- facturing process of the glass part. Direct screen printing onto the glass also provides very high material resistance compared to other printing technologies.
Prior to printing the pharmacy glass, it must be clean and free of residues for optimal ink adhesion. Next, the image can be screen printed directly onto the substrate, or printed onto a label or decal which will be applied in a later process. Direct screen printing uses small format printing presses, and cylindar presses are common for printing indirect decals. Both processes allow for single and multiple color pharmacy glass markings.
Dimensionally stable PET 1500 polyester mesh is primarily used in pharmacy glass applications. Several ink types can be used in this industry, like thermoplastic ink systems (requiring wire mesh), solvent ink systems, and organic ink systems – so it is important to match the mesh specification to the ink system.
Secondary production processes/post-printing processes for direct screen printing include ink drying (for non-thermoplastic inks) and ink firing to make the decoration permanent.
