Ink additives come in many forms, including dispersants, slip/ rub materials such as waxes, foam control, rheology modifiers and many more. Depending on the additive type, the additive imparts specific characteristics to the final formulation.

It is also a sizable market. According to Verified Market Research (VMR), ink additives sales were $1.7 billion in 2021, and is expected to grow to $2.61 billion by 2030.

Leading ink additives suppliers are seeing growth in their fields. Alex Radu, technical service group at Shamrock Technologies, said that after a big rebound in 2021, the ink additives market has stabilized now that logistics and raw materials costs have normalized.

Keith W. Condon, national sales director, Keim Additec Surface USA, LLC, said that for keim-additec USA, its sales have been increasing each year.

“During the 2020 year, our sales were just down 1% from pre-COVID 2019 sales,” Condon reported. “2022 was a record year for sales for us. This 2023 year will be a challenge. There have been some great months and some months have been so-so. We have the thought process to stay focused, work hard and pursue all opportunities that we find.”

Dr. Courtney Thurau, head of global market segment printing inks for Evonik’s Coating Additives business, reported that the past three years have been “incredibly volatile” across the entire printing inks value chain, including for ink additives.

“The pandemic introduced numerous new challenges, and we had to rethink the way we innovate and interact with our customers,” Dr. Thurau said. “The unprecedented economic recovery that followed in 2022 was incredibly difficult to manage due to raw material shortages, challenges with global logistics and an unstable geopolitical environment. Nevertheless, the industry pulled together and fared well through collaboration and communication. We still see significant room to grow with our customers and the market.”

John McAllister, global sales director for Micro Powders, Inc., said Micro Powders has seen steady growth in demand for wax additives in the graphic arts market, including trends towards natural and sustainable technologies driven largely by consumer demand for green products.

“Natural and biodegradable waxes like our NatureFine R331 rice bran wax are gaining greater acceptance as ink producers balance performance with the biocontent of their inks,” added McAllister.

John Kwasneski, director of sales – paint and coatings additives for Munzing, said that Munzing’s ink additives portfolio continues to closely track the growth of the ink industry.

“The most important changes have been driven by regulatory changes implemented primarily in the EU over the last few years and our products are addressing those formulation needs,” Kwasneski added. “UV inks in particular and packaging inks in general have shown the most robust interest and growth from our specialty additives perspective.”

John Jilek Jr., president of inksolutions, observed that growth as a whole is a question in all print technologies. “With an upcoming potential global recession being reported, it is unclear that any technology will grow over the next couple years,” added Jilek.

The COVID-19 pandemic had a huge impact on virtually every raw material, and additive materials were also affected. Siltech Corporation VP Robert Ruckle reported that raw materials supply is mostly okay today.

“There are slowdowns due to global economic health at the moment, but overall, raw materials are readily available,” said Condon. “The major cause for concern is PTFE and similar fluorochemistries. Regulations are coming down faster these days, so finding new technologies can be challenge. What once took years now requires months. While material is available, meaningful solutions is the real challenge.”

“We found that basic raw materials like crude oil derivatives have a stable position in availability and price compared to high-tech products,” Radu observed. “With technically advanced products, supply is scarce and competition between suppliers is thin, both their price and availability are difficult to adjust to.”

Ink Growth Markets

From their vantage point, additive suppliers are seeing stronger growth in energy curable, digital and packaging inks.

“We can break growth down into technology, region, and ap- plication,” Dr. Thurau said. “With respect to ink technology, we continue to see the strongest growth percentage in the area of radiation cure inks. Regionally, growth in Asia-Pacific continues to lead all regions. From an application perspective, the pack- aging market continues to offer attractive global growth rates. Outside of the analog printing space, the expansion of inkjet technology in new industrial applications also continues to show double-digit growth.”

“The most growth is in digital printing, followed by flexible and hard packaging, which are outpacing other market segments due to a combination of customization and educated consumer- ism,” said Radu. “The packaging markets continue to lead the way in terms of volume growth. While digital printing demand is the highest percentage growth, we see significant growth in our corrugated, flexible packaging and narrow web labeling customers across various product lines.”

“We continue to have a strong presence in water, solvent, and UV printing inks; however, we have seen more growth in overprint varnishes,” McAllister said. “Matting, texture, and soft touch additives play an important role in the overall design of consumer packaging.”

Condon pointed out that digital printing is rapidly expanding into label production and electrophotography.

“The packaging industry is expected to experience a significant revolution over the next decade due to the increasing application of digital printing,” Condon added. “Due to the quick turnaround capability that digital printing offers, it has been very popular. Recent developments in digital printing, such as digital carton cutting, creasing, and other completion technologies, have increased the potential for more applications in flexible packaging, corrugated packaging, and folding cartons.

“With the advantages of the inkjet process, such as being non- contact and low cost, this process is extensively used for printing large formats on a wide range of substrates, making it suitable for packaging,” Condon said. “It can be integrated into existing conversion lines more efficiently than toner systems. With the developments in the food industry and the growing population in countries like China, India, and the United States, rigid packaging has been increasing over the past few years.”

Sustainability and the Additives Market

With the growing interest in sustainability, ink additives manufacturers are working closely with their ink customers, such as on bio-based materials and energy usage.

Dr. Thurau of Evonik noted that sustainability continues to be one of the hottest topics in the ink and ink additives industry today.

“Additives manufacturers are taking various approaches to ensure they are supporting their customers with sustainability. The approach towards sustainability, however, varies greatly from region to region,” Dr. Thurau said.

“The identification of bio-based raw materials and increasing overall bio-content in the final ink additive is one approach being pursued by numerous ink additive suppliers,” added Dr. Thurau. “Developing new additives to support de-inking and to enable improved recycling and upcycling are also key. The Circular Economy topic is especially present in EMEA. Our customers frequently request detailed regulatory information for food contact assessments, and increasingly, we receive requests for detailed life cycle analysis.”

Radu pointed out that there is a growing trend of replacing fossil fuel derivatives with bio-based alternatives, with both regulatory compliance and consumer-end pressure motivating higher sustainability in supply chains, processing, technology and finished products.

“This is an important path we are collectively taking to in- vest in a greener future,” added Radu. “Shamrock Technologies has invested heavily in providing bio-based, regulatory compliant additives without sacrificing performance.”

“It seems most people are just learning what is needed here,” Ruckle said. “Examining the total supply chain, both upstream and downstream is where most are starting. Overall carbon footprint is the idea, but the specific language is not in place yet. Auditors and consistent expectations are yet to come.”

“At Keim-Additec Surface, we have always prioritized sustainability, pushing for very high regulatory-compliant materials across all categories we serve,” Condon said. “In recent years, we have put even more emphasis on this, streamlining our portfolio to ensure that our supply chain is as stable as possible. This also makes us to be more flexible, customizing solutions to address clients’ specific needs.”

“There is greater emphasis on natural and sustainably sourced waxes that exhibit equal to better performance than their synthetic counterparts,” McAllister noted. “In recent years, we have added several important products to our portfolio. These have been well received by our printing ink customers.”

“The environment, energy usage and sustainability are a key focus and corporate initiative for Munzing globally and have been since our founding in 1830,” said Kwasneski. “Our worldwide headquarters in Abstatt, Germany was designed with great aware- ness about its impact on the carbon cycle and all our recent plant expansions strive to reach carbon neutrality.

“Munzing works closely with all our customers and is in regular contact with regulatory bodies regarding current and proposed rules regarding sustainability.,” he added. “We have a Bronze rating from EcoVadis and continue to work towards steady improvement. Most recently, we have launched a new global portfolio of roughly three dozen Green Products that have been successfully formulated with regards to renewable organic carbon content as measured by ASTM D6866 and biodegradability as measured by OECD test methodology 301F.The vast majority test in the 90 – 100% range for renewable organic content.”