中文For decades, the printing world has had a dirty little secret hiding in plain sight: a solvent called MEK. Methyl ethyl ketone. It got the job done — great adhesion, fast drying — but it came with baggage. Administrative headaches. Monitoring requirements. A cloud of volatile organic compounds hanging over the pressroom.
Domino Printing Sciences just walked up and said: we don’t need it anymore.
The company has launched a full range of MEK-free, low-VOC inks for its Ax-Series continuous inkjet (CIJ) printers — including the shiny new Ax560i. And here’s the trick they had to pull off: for years, MEK-free inks forced a miserable trade-off. Go without MEK and you’d watch drying times crawl and adhesion wobble, especially with the ethanol-heavy formulas people tried instead. Domino’s answer was to reach for pentanone-based solvents — low-impact, but with the grip and dry speed close enough to traditional MEK that most operators won’t notice the difference.
Karen Davey, Domino’s fluids product manager, is clear about the “why”: “Our new MEK-free ink range has been developed to help ease the compliance burden for our manufacturing customers.” She’s right that there’s no single global ban on MEK — yet. But in several regions, using it means extra paperwork and monitoring. Swap the solvent base and that workload evaporates. No more explaining yourself to regulators every quarter.
The range is genuinely broad. There’s 1BK112, a general-purpose black with solid grip on metal, glass, and some plastics. 7CL103, a clear fluorescent ink that shrugs off retort and alcohol. And 7BK107, a black built for the tough food-packaging jobs, sticking across metal, glass, and plastics. Several formulations line up with Germany’s Printing Ink Ordinance — subject to final migration testing, of course.
But the quiet win is the sustainability angle. Traditional MEK inks pump out VOCs and guzzle make-up solvent. Domino’s MEK-free versions cut make-up usage by up to 35%. Add the Green Pack solvent-recovery add-on and you recover condensed solvent that would otherwise drift away — pushing savings to 50% on compatible printers. Then there’s CleanAssist, which automates printhead cleaning and recycles make-up inside the ink system instead of washing it down the drain.
Rajesh Saini, Domino’s technical services deputy GM in India, ran real-world food-packaging trials: “Top-tier adhesion and fast-drying performance — even in demanding freezer-grade flow-wrap environments.” That’s the proof point that matters. Talk is cheap; a frozen food line that doesn’t smudge is not.
For printers and packagers, this is the rare story where doing the right thing and easing your life happen to be the same move. Less chemical, less paperwork, less waste, same (or better) performance. If that’s not the direction the whole industry should be walking, what is?
Source: WhatTheyThink (press release, published 27 October 2026).
