It is investing 12m in a dedicated waterless CTP plate line at its Okazaki plant in Japan. We are predicting a big demand for waterless plates, said Toray Europe manager Masakazu Tada.

It believes that pressure for printers to gain ISO 14000 accreditation to prove their green credentials will increase the interest in waterless. And it feels that KBAs waterless newspaper press, the Cortina, and its Genius small-format commercial press (pictured) are pointers to the process more widespread adoption.

The new plate line, which will come on-stream in summer 2003, is expected to triple production capacity. By 2004 Toray expects sales to have doubled to 25m.

One thing the figures imply is a cost reduction, said Tada. More and more bigger print companies are interested in waterless. To deal with larger companies that use a lot of plates we need more competitive prices. KPG and Presstek are also coming with waterless plates and we have to be competitive on price and quality.

As well as the new plate line the firm is working on new waterless plates. For the KBA Cortina project it is working on a plate that is more resistant to wear from uncoated stocks suitable for long runs.

At Ipex it also hopes to demonstrate a chemical-free plate that just requires cleaning after imaging. Toray estimates that waterless printing has only a 1% share in Europe compared to around 10% in Japan, although it hopes that over the next few years Europe and the UK will catch up.

Story by Barney Cox