UV cigarette pack ink testing standard

With the progress of society and the change of people's consumption concepts, food and drug safety issues have received increasing attention from the society. As a special commodity, the tobacco industry is also facing environmental reforms. UV ink has no solvent, almost all of its components can participate in the reaction, so it can be achieved without any residue and volatilization, so it has taken a big step forward in environmental protection compared with traditional ink. However, it cannot be said that UV ink is safe. The raw materials of UV ink will leave some harmful substances in the production process. For example, there may be solvent residues during the production of UV resins and monomers, and heavy metals may remain during the production of pigments. If the subsequent treatment is not thorough, these substances will remain in the ink.

At present, the detection of harmful substances in UV cigarette ink packs mainly focuses on the residual amount of organic solvents and heavy metals in the ink. The National Printing and Decoration Products Quality Supervision and Inspection Center has researched and promulgated the ink solvent residue limit and its determination method and the ink heavy metal limit and its determination method (QB/T2929-2008). In order to control the residues of organic solvents in the packaging paper of bars and boxes, the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration has specially formulated YC/T207-2014 "Determination of Solvent Residues in Cigarette Paper-Headspace-Gas Chromatography" and YC263-2008 "Cigarette Rods and Boxes" The "Limits of Volatile Organic Compounds in Wrapping Paper" two tobacco industry standards stipulate the testing methods and limit requirements of 16 organic compounds such as benzene, toluene, ethanol and styrene. Among them, benzene is undetectable. If benzene is detected, the batch of test samples is unqualified; the other 15 organic substances are qualified according to the excess ratio of each substance (exceeding ratio = detection value/indicator value -1).

Regarding the heavy metal residues in the ink, cigarette package printing companies often require UV ink manufacturers to provide EU RoHS test reports, including: lead Pb (1000ppm), cadmium Cd (100ppm), mercury Hg (1000ppm), hexavalent chromium Cr6+ (1000ppm) ), polybrominated diphenyl ether PBDE (1000ppm), polybrominated biphenyl PBB (1000ppm). In addition, four new toxic and hazardous substances were added: phthalate diester DEHP (1000ppm), butyl benzyl phthalate BBP (1000ppm), dibutyl phthalate DBP (1000ppm), phthalic acid Diisobutyl ester DIBP (1000ppm) will be officially implemented on July 22, 2019.
The photoinitiator, which is a component of UV ink, will also produce volatile organic compounds during the curing process. According to research, it has been proved that photoinitiator 184 will produce by-products such as cyclohexanone during the curing process. Photoinitiator 1173 will produce by-products during curing. Will produce trace amounts of acetone and other by-products. When the addition amount of photoinitiator in UV ink increases, the amount of by-products produced increases accordingly. The General Administration of Tobacco promulgated YQ/T 31-2013 "Determination of Photoinitiators in Cigarette Rods and Packaging Paper by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry", which stipulates the determination methods and limit requirements of 18 photoinitiators in cigarette pack inks.