Landa Seeks to Disrupt the Metallization Market

Samples of Landa Nano-Metallography

The evidence is clear that metallization in labels and packaging is effective in grabbing a consumer’s eye and enticing them toward making a purchase. But when Landa, a company well known for its digital printing innovations, sought to enter the metallization space, it noticed some alarming trends.

According to Matthew Lightstone, Landa’s VP of Nano-Metallization, the traditional foiling process is exceptionally wasteful, costly and inefficient. With these three points in mind, Landa sought out to find a way to improve metallization without sacrificing quality. The result, which will be unveiled at drupa, is Landa Nano-Metallography, a modular solution that can be applied to any print process and provide metallization with zero waste.

"Brand owners are looking to reduce the cost and carbon footprint of packaging without reducing the shelf impact, but have limited options," Lightstone says.

During the research process, Lightstone says Landa realized several statistics that backed up its desire to improve the metallization process. From a waste perspective, he says, most converters only use about 10 to 15% of a roll of foil and only about 1% of the roll that is used is metal. He says the process is also quite slow, with a two-week delivery time for most hot-foil rotary dies, long setup times and a need to slow down the press during the foiling process. And from a cost perspective, foil is an expensive consumable and many converters who use it end up with substantial funds tied up in inventory.

With Nano-Metallography, Lightstone says converters can get the same effects, using the same amount of metal, but without the waste. The key to the system, he explains, is a donor roller, which is covered in a nano-scale, monolayer of metal. As the substrate passes through the system, only the quantity of metal required is transferred to a trigger image, printed prior to the metallization stage, while the rest of the metal remains on the donor roller. After each impression is made, the metal that was removed from the roller is replaced, ready for the next pass.

Matthew Lightstone demonstrates how Landa Nano-Metallography provides significant waste reduction.

“The metal is attracted to the trigger image,” Lightstone says. “The paper comes out with a metallized image and the donor roller continues to rotate. Wherever we’ve peeled off the metal, it gets replaced and where it wasn’t peeled off doesn’t get replaced.”

Although Landa is a well-known entity in the digital world, Lightstone says one particularly exciting aspect of this technology is that it can be applied to any print process. He says Landa plans to start by targeting the narrow-web market and will be demonstrating the process on an eight-color Omet flexo press at drupa.

However, Lightstone says that beyond flexo, the trigger image can be applied via inkjet, screen and any other print process, allowing the technology to move beyond packaging.

“It could be used in the book market or for magazines on the cover,” he says. “Currently, there is no foiling in advertisements inside the magazine, which is a new market opportunity we could open up.”

To see Nano-Metallography in action, drupa visitors can visit the Landa booth throughout the show, where the process will be demonstrated five times per day. Registration is not required for the metallization demonstrations. Landa's theater show, which is all-encompassing, does require registration.