The Influence of Various Paper Coating Pigments on Paper Performance and Printability: A Review

The paper industry is continuously and consistently improving paper quality and printability in order to meet higher printer and consumer standards. One key to improve print quality is to have a suitable coating on surface empirically so as to derive the mechanisms that improve final print quality. The technology to characterize paper coatings has evolved rapidly over the past several years. This technology is reviewed here in the context of coating component identification, the internal structure of coatings, physical and optical properties of coating surfaces and printability. The premise of this review is that techniques discussed here are applicable to coating pigments, coating formulations, end user properties and final performance on a typical multicolour printing press.