IIT Roorkee's water-based printing ink technology moves to Industry

Researchers of Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee(IIT Roorkee) and Afflatus Gravure Private Limited, Noida, developed environment friendly technology for flexible printing. Institute has transferred the two technologies to a reputed packaging company under a licensed agreement signed in presence of Director IIT Roorkee Prof K K Pant and other officials of company and research team.

The technology has been developed by Dr Anurag Kulshreshtha, Prof Millie Pant and Prof Y.S. Negi (Rtd.) of IIT Roorkee and Mr Arun Pandey of Afflatus Gravures Pvt Ltd, Noida. The technology is useful in the area of flexible packaging and also going to be a sustainable solution. 

IIT Roorkee is already processed for getting patent of the technology. The technology was developed under a project which was funded under ‘Uchchatar Avishkar Yojana’ program of Ministry of Education, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Government of India and Afflatus Gravure Private Limited, Noida. The objective of the project was to develop a highly sustainable, environment friendly and cost-effective printing solution. water-based printing ink for rotogravure flexible packaging printing operations.

The team of researchers at IIT Roorkee developed the water-based solution to meet the challenge of reducing carbon footprint and VOCs to promote green solution which will be the benchmark for green manufacturing systems in printing applications leading towards an environment friendly solution and will be a step towards the development of a sustainable society.

Speaking about the development Mr Arun Pandey, Director, Afflatus Group mentioned that the present technology is likely to be a game changer in the world of printing. Encouraged by its success, he also mentioned that the present technology transfer is just the beginning of the partnership of Afflatus with IITR and will continue in future as well.

Prof Millie Pant and Dr Anurag Kulshreshtha also highlighted that this green solution shall help reduce the carbon footprints, without affecting overall product quality.

Mr. Ranjeet Tiwari, Afflatus emphasised that it is a high time for the packaging industries to adapt to such technologies, which reduce the carbon footprint and are environment friendly.

Speaking on the collaboration, Prof. Akshay Dvivedi, Dean Sponsor Research and Industrial Consultancy (SRIC), IIT Roorkee, said, “This collaboration of IIT Roorkee with a well-known packaging industry is not just limited to the general understanding of the concept , but also focuses on a consistent framework for application in various domains of packaging, operations “

Prof. Kamal K. Pant, Director, IIT Roorkee, highlighted," Technologies that lead towards the development of a sustainable society remains most demanding in present scenario. The development of water-based ink by IIT Roorkee in collaboration with Afflatus contributes significantly towards the research in the areas of flexi packaging, printing operations”

About IIT Roorkee 

IIT Roorkee, that recently celebrate its 175 years of existence, is one of the pioneer institutes of national importance imparting higher education in engineering, sciences, management, architecture and planning, and humanities and social sciences. Since its establishment in 1847, the Institute has played a vital role in providing technical human resources and know-how to the country.