Product category:
Printing Presses and Machinery (New and Used, Service and Repair)
News Release from: Heidelberg | Subject: Speedmaster XL 105 presses
Edited by the Printingtalk Editorial
Team on 20 December 2007
Printers Put Environment Near Top Of
Agenda
According to a new study, 40 per cent of printing companies are placing great value on environmental protection.
According to a new study, 40 per cent of printing companies are placing great value on environmental protection The same survey conducted by Heidelberg showed that of the 100 of the company's Speedmaster XL 105 presses sold in Germany to date, 60 per cent already use reduced-alcohol systems containing between zero and six per cent alcohol, with most running at the 'sweet spot' of three per cent, said the company
This article was originally published on Printingtalk on 6 Jun 2003 at 8.00am (UK)
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Dr Jurgen Rautert, Heidelberg's director for engineering and manufacturing, explained: "Our customers set great store by environmental protection.
We can show that protecting the environment and earning money are not mutually exclusive.
In fact, the investments required to secure a better future for our planet pay for themselves very quickly." He added that Heidelberg made environmental protection one of its objectives in 1992 and the company was the first to receive the industry's eco-certificate for its foundry in Amstetten (Germany) in 1996.
Further reading
Creative Print Gets Colourful with Speedmaster
Creative Print in Leeds has made its first move into full colour and CTP production with a Heidelberg Speedmaster SM52-5L five-colour with coater and a Prosetter 74 visible light platesetter.
Heidelberg Celebtates Century of Stitchers
Heidelberg) signed over the 100th Stitchmaster ST 400 gang-stitcher to Buchdruckerei Lustenau in Austria in December 2003.
Heidelberg's New Workflows and RIP
Heidelberg will be supplying customers with the latest release of its automated prepress workflow, Prinect Printready System 1.2, with immediate effect.
Since then, environmental management systems compliant with EMAS and later ISO 14001 have been installed at all of Heidelberg's development and production sites.
According to the company, independent experts check each year whether the Heidelberg's facilities comply with the legal requirements and voluntary commitments.
Rautert added: "We aim to make printing more environmentally friendly and to ensure that the public is aware of this fact.
Having pursued an active policy of environmental protection for the past 11 years, our press production processes are already very environmentally friendly.
However, the focus now is on minimising presses' environmental impact when in use at customers' sites.
Therefore, our developers are currently working on concepts that will keep environmental pollution in print shops to a bare minimum.
Our Print Media Academy network also provides support for the implementation of appropriate production methods." Heidelberg said that if customers implement all the measures suggested by the company for environmentally friendly production, numerous reductions can be achieved.
CO2 emissions generated by material consumption and printing can be reduced by over five per cent, paper waste by up to 80 per cent, energy consumption by over 15 per cent and waste by up to five per cent.
According to the company, for the Speedmaster XL105-6+L press those reductions would be equivalent to a total annual saving of around EUR210,000 without factoring in to the calculation the savings made on the press through shorter make-ready times.
Heidelberg said that reduced paper waste has the biggest impact on environmental protection.
The biggest environmental factor in sheetfed offset printing is start-up waste and no other parameter has such a big impact on a press's environmental performance.
Rautert explained: "If we consider that 600 sheets of start-up waste are created on average per job, a press in 3B format running in three-shift operation creates over 280 metric tonnes of waste a year.
That corresponds to around 300 tons of CO2 emissions each year.
The additional waste created in the post-press stage is not even factored in to this equation." Heidelberg added that it offers a range of systems to cut such wastage - primarily the modules of the Prinect workflow system, including the Prinect Prepress Interface for pre-setting ink zones on the press, the Prinect Color Assistant for storing specifications for inks and paper and the spectrophotometric in-line colour measuring and control system Prinect Inpress Control.
Combining those Prinect modules is claimed to cut the number of pulls required during set-up to one or two, which can save up to 400 sheets of waste paper per print job or up to 190 tonnes of paper a year.
According to Heidelberg, the Anicolor inking unit is today's most radical system for cutting waste paper.
It is available on the Speedmaster SM 52 press and was awarded the PIA/GAFT Award this year.
Heidelberg emphasised that the power consumption of a press is the second most important environmental factor after paper waste.
A press in 3B format employing six colours, a coating unit and dryers has an average power consumption of 140 kilowatts.
The power generated is responsible for the emission of 290 tonnes of CO2 per year.
The main drive, dryers and air supply use the most energy.
The company added that it boosts environmentally friendly production through its Star peripherals, which together help reduce energy consumption.
For example, the Airstar 3000 air supply cabinet uses a turbo radial blower that requires up to 50 per cent less power than previous systems.
At present, its efficiency rating is almost 80 per cent.
The Combistar 3000 Pro from Heidelberg is a combination unit that is said to cool the machine's printing units in moderate climates for most of the year and does so without additional active cooling, using only the print shop's ambient air, for instance.
The distance between the dryer and the sheet in the Preset Plus Deliver, according to Heidelberg, has been reduced by more than two centimetres.
Each centimetre means less power is lost during the drying process.
In practical terms, that amounts to an energy saving of 10 per cent in conventional printing when compared to the best rival system and as much as 25 per cent in UV printing.
With the new Drystar 3000 LYYL, up to 30 per cent of the hot air is recirculated, which cuts energy consumption still further.
Heidelberg recommends that it is important to differentiate between the power input and the real power consumed.
As Dr Jurgen Rautert explained: "Our innovative energy recovery system in the Drystar 3000 LYYL means that we have to heat the air with maximum energy at the start of production but we can then reduce the power during long-term operation to make optimum use of the heat from the waste air." The same principle applies to various other components in the machines, he added and it is always the maximum power required for the most critical job that is made available but, in practical applications, the use of frequency regulation and control technology means that the peak power is only required in a few situations.
Measurements have confirmed that the Speedmaster press needs less power per sheet than other machines.
Rautert also said that, in future, Heidelberg will campaign for press specifications to quote the power consumption as a standard requirement.
Heidelberg added that its new Dryingmonitor is the world's first measuring system to record drying qualities for sheetfed offset systems.
Dryingmonitor is used to assess a sheet's drying quality and it is now possible to minimise the performance and energy consumption of the Drystar dryers without worrying about the sheets sticking together.
As the Dryingmonitor makes for drying processes with less heat transfer, that means it is also less likely that the coating will yellow due to excess heat or that the printing stock will distort.
A further key parameter in environmentally friendly production is the reduction of emissions, regardless of whether they are volatile organic hydrocarbons (VOCs) or powder, said Heidelberg.
A new Cleanstar process-air system is now available for the Speedmaster CD 102 press and XL 105 units, which cuts the level of fine dust in the print shop to a fraction of the legal limit, it is claimed.
The use of alcohol in dampening solutions is another key area, in Heidelberg's opinion.
Rautert pointed out: "In Germany, only 15 per cent of printers use reduced-alcohol solutions.
Unfortunately the others continue to use dampening solutions containing between eight per cent and 15 per cent alcohol.
A major reduction in environmental impact would be achieved if all print shops used dampening solutions containing just three per cent alcohol.
The ecological 'sweet spot' in offset printing, such as the balance between VOC emissions and environment-related additional outlay for energy, increased cleaning and start-up waste, is achieved with a concentration of three per cent rather than the widely publicised zero per cent.".
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