Traditional manual cleaning of ink screens after printing usually involves using shredded cloth dipped in cleaning solution or anti-white water for wiping. Cleaning one side before proceeding to the other side is a common practice in this process. However, there are several challenges associated with this method:
- Human intervention can lead to inconsistent handling, potentially damaging or even breaking the screen tension.
- Residual printing paste in the tiny lines of the screen image can cause printing defects and render the screen unusable once the paste solidifies.
- Microscopic areas in the screen image are prone to causing the detachment of photosensitive emulsion, resulting in printing defects and screen scrappage.
- The cleaning solutions used, such as wash water or anti-white water, possess properties like flammability, explosiveness, toxicity, and volatility, posing occupational health risks to workers. Common occupational diseases among screen room workers include leukemia, skin ulceration, delayed reaction, gastrointestinal ulcers, laryngopulmonary diseases, dizziness, sudden bleeding, and limb weakness.
- Environmental pollution occurs due to the evaporation of cleaning agents into the atmosphere during open cleaning processes. When the concentration of agents in the cleaning area reaches a certain level, it can lead to safety hazards such as fire or explosion, even with a minor spark.
- A significant amount of hazardous waste is generated, as shredded cloth used for cleaning becomes contaminated with ink and cleaning agents, requiring professional disposal and incurring high waste treatment costs.
- Difficulty in recruiting workers for manual cleaning due to improving living standards, resulting in a shortage of personnel willing to work in the screen room.
- Secondary pollution arises from the evaporation of cleaning agents into the air and their absorption into shredded cloth, making it challenging to recycle or reuse them, thus causing environmental and atmospheric pollution.
To address these issues:
- Implement fully pneumatic control and drive systems to eliminate fire and explosion hazards.
- Adopt enclosed cleaning methods with centralized exhaust connections to factory exhaust treatment systems, eliminating personal injury risks and environmental/atmospheric pollution while significantly reducing the probability of workers falling ill.
- Utilize 360° dual-sided equal-pressure rotating jet cleaning to ensure unobstructed screen holes, maintain consistent screen conditions before and after cleaning, prevent photosensitive emulsion detachment, and enhance printing quality while reducing screen scrappage rates.
- Eliminate the need for wiping with cloth during the cleaning process (with a small amount of cloth reserved for backup), significantly reducing the generation and handling of hazardous materials.
- Reduce employee workload, enable one person to operate multiple machines, and improve work efficiency to address labor shortages.
- Employ specialized solvent recovery machines to collect and reuse cleaning agents, achieving zero emissions of agents.