EFI Cretaprint Receives Alfa de Oro Prize

The advanced, greener EFI Cretaprint Hybrid digital tile decoration solution that Electron-ics For Imaging, Inc. is showcasing at the Cevisama tradeshow earned the company one of the tile industry’s most respected honors, a 2020 Alfa de Oro award from the Sociedad Española de Cerámica y Vidrio. The highly competitive award recognizes ceramics and glass manufacturing equipment that stimulates technological and artistic creativity.

The award-winning Cretaprint Hybrid digital inkjet printer ecosystem gives tile manufacturers a long-term business advantage for current and future productivity, with the unique ability to work with eco-solvent inks now, and then move to aqueous inks using the same EFI Cretaprint printer. This solution, which is making its European debut at Cevisama, facilitates the important future move to greener EFI Cretacolor aqueous inks, as well as the adoption of highly accurate, efficient digital glazing.

“We are addressing our customers’ key concerns for immediately adding eco-friendly pro-cesses – something that will eventually become standard for an industry looking to reduce its environmental footprint,” said José Luis Ramón Moreno, VP and GM, EFI Industrial Printing. “We have already had several successful EFI Cretaprint Hybrid implementations, and our users are able to achieve the same level of print quality and reliability that they have had previously, with improved sustainability.”
The EFI offering at Cevisama includes the world’s only hybrid eco-solvent/aqueous inkjet ceramic tile printer technology, available in widths from 700 mm to 1,400 mm.

Once Hybrid Cretaprint users switch to EFI Cretacolor aqueous inkjet inks, they can gain sustainability advantages, eliminating more than 90% of the volatile organic compound emissions – and 73% of the average carbon emissions – that occur with eco-solvent ce-ramic inkjet inks. The aqueous inks also offer a short drying time, with higher print quali-ty and image definition compared with eco-solvent inks.

Versatile EFI Cretaprint Shield auxiliary modules for the Hybrid ecosystem include a digital glazing option with important environmental and economic benefits. The digital glazing feature applies the right amount of glaze in a controlled manner, reducing the amount of waste that is typical in tile manufacturing. The EFI Cretaprint glaze formulation also has lower vapor emissions and requires less water consumption.

The award EFI received is EFI’s second Alfa de Oro honor. The company also earned the prize in 2016 for its larger-format solution – the 1.8-meter wide EFI Cretaprint X4 printer featuring a DTP 2.0 system that eliminates unused space when decorating different tile sizes in a single production run.