XAAR is continuing to drive print innovation across the global ceramics industry, particularly for today’s large-format tiles and slabs. The company’s printheads, unique technologies and collaborative partnerships are supporting rapid adoption of water based digital glaze, which has become one of the most significant process developments in ceramics. Building on more than 15 years of sector experience, Xaar is continuing to create growth in an essentially mature market through leveraging its innovative inkjet technology to help unlock new levels of creativity, efficiency and production performance. Water based digital glaze has moved from early laboratory trials to full industrial deployment, with the technology now being used to deliver premium decorative effects, high end customisation and the flexibility needed for advanced products such as large slabs and sintered stone.
XAAR’s inkjet printheads and technologies are ideally suited to support this transformation for manufacturers. Ultra High Viscosity Technology allows jetting of fluids with significantly higher pigment loads and larger particles, including glass frits, through a much broader viscosity window than traditional printheads can handle. This enables the digital production of deep textures, matte and gloss combinations, intricate reliefs, metallics and lustre finishes, as well as high thickness glaze layers in a single pass. The XAAR Aquinox printhead, with true through flow architecture powered by XAAR’s TF Technology, ensures reliable jetting of challenging aqueous formulations with up to 50 percent solids and particle sizes up to D90(v) ≤ 3 microns. This extremely high laydown capability supports glaze deposition levels up to 350 g/sqm from a single printhead, creating new creative and functional opportunities for tile manufacturers adopting water based digital glaze processes.