What is the significance of fountain solution in printing process ?
Fountain solution formulated for offset lithography consists of five basic ingredients: Water – to protect non-image area Acid – to reduce pH for accepting ink in the image areas & water in the non-image areas Gum Arabic – gum adheres to non-image area, keeps it from accepting inks, and protects it if it dries during press idle time Wetting agent – to decrease surface tension of water, allowing the plate to run with minimum water; keeps non-image area free from attacking ink. Fountain solution separates image and non-image areas; Too low concentration of the solution may cause plugging to image area, tinting, summing and too high concentration may cause increase in dot gain, ink piling, poor ink drying and wet trap mottle. PH and Conductivity are two important parameters parameter in fountain solutions.
