The new inks, which are commercially available immediately in the European market, no longer require EU ‘health hazard’ labelling. They also meet the exacting environmental standards of Nordic Swan Ecolabeling and are fully compliant with EuPIA raw material guidelines.

Sun Chemical said the upgraded inks are also deinkable according to INGEDE (International Association of the Deinking Industry) Method 11 criteria, which assesses the recyclability of printed products.

The inks, which are suitable for all sheetfed press types, are designed for standard offset printing to ISO 12647. The manufacturer said they “consistently deliver outstanding levels of productivity at very high print quality, and with excellent dot gain”.

Additionally, the latest highly reactive UV resin system is said to offer “exceptional curing” with UV LED and low energy mercury lamps in both single and double-sided printing.

Sun Chemical Energy Curing Products Europe marketing manager Jonathan Sexton said: “We’re proud to be a technology leader in low-energy UV curing and we will continue to leverage this expertise to keep improving sustainability criteria across our product range.

“SunWave Lumina UV inks were already highly regarded for their class-leading printability and low-energy-curing performance under LED and low-energy mercury systems. Having boosted the sustainability of the range still further, we’re delighted to have had this recognised by Nordic Swan Ecolabelling.”

Sun Chemical increased prices across a wide range of products in EMEA on 1 March, citing raw material shortages and “dramatically increased” freight costs.