A black algae-based ink is now being used in production to print water bottle labels. Developed over five years, this solution replaces petroleum-derived carbon black with a pigment derived from algal biomass, which has a negative carbon footprint. This first commercial application is deployed by the Hawaiian coffee and water brand Wai?kea on its recycled PET bottles.
The ink, called flexoACTExact UV, runs on standard UV flexo label printing lines. FlexoACTExact UV drew on the expertise of Living Ink Technologies, which specializes in algae-based inks, Actega, which worked on the final UV formulation for industrial production, and NextGen Label Group, an American label printer.
According to Living Ink Technologies' lifecycle analysis, conventional carbon black emits 3.75 kg of CO2 equivalent per kilogram of pigment produced, while Algae Black, the pigment used in ACTExact UV algae-based black ink, has a net impact of -4.16 kg of CO2 equivalent per kilogram.
If the world's supply of black pigments were replaced by Living Ink's Algae Black, this would reduce CO2 equivalent emissions by more than 100 million tonnes every year, equivalent to the climate impact of 25 million cars.
"This project has made it possible to replace 100% of the black ink previously used by the brand, demonstrating that algae-based technology, which helps reduce carbon emissions, can be adopted on a large scale without compromising performance." says Actega.
Wai?kea, a public interest company that has adopted 100% rPET bottles since 2012, is keen to share this innovation with other manufacturers, as the technology is open source through its partners.
