From its beginnings in 2008, Mexar Ltd noticed a chance for pigmented inks, and jumped into the area of interest. It’s a choice that has paid off.
“On the time, we observed that there was hole within the inkjet market for an organization to focus on the event of water-based pigment inks for textile printing functions,” mentioned Dr. Andy Hancock, Mexar’s managing director. “All the opposite giant inkjet firms within the textile enviornment have been targeted on dye-based inks, in order a small firm we needed to carve a distinct segment, and pigment-based inks was the pure selection.”
Along with his PhD in inkjet formulations, Dr. Hancock’s background is inkjet chemistry, so he took that technical data to focus solely on water-based ink formulations with pigments and binders to try to develop the textile inkjet market.
“On the time, direct-to-garment (DTG) printing was a brand new know-how and the thought of roll-to-roll textile inkjet printing was talked about quite a bit, however the know-how (each ink and printheads) was not prepared,” added Dr. Hancock. “We knew that pigment textile inks have been going to play a big position in textile printing know-how in some unspecified time in the future – nevertheless we underestimated how lengthy that may take!”
At the moment, Mexar’s main focus is the textile ornament market.
“We’ve got sublimation inks and pigment inks for quite a few totally different key printhead applied sciences in addition to direct-to-garment (DTG) and direct-to-film (DTF) inks,” Dr. Hancock reported. “The DTF market has stunned us all at how rapidly it has been adopted by the garment ornament market. The display screen print neighborhood has actually purchased into the idea, and that is rising at an unlimited fee.”
Mexar’s capacity to react rapidly to the market differentiates itself from its opponents.
“At Mexar we work in a barely totally different approach to most different ink firms,” mentioned Dr. Hancock. “As a small improvement firm, we will react extraordinarily rapidly to market situations. The DTF providing from Mexar proved this as we have been one of many first firms outdoors of China to supply a DTF ink answer. In addition to our fast improvement timelines, we will additionally provide bespoke formulation work. If firms have a specific requirement from the ink, we will develop and manufacture this solely for them. Up to now we’ve got supplied licenses out for ink formulations as effectively.”
Innovation and repair are crucial to Mexar’s success.
“Innovation and repair are key to our longevity,” mentioned Dr. Hancock. “We’ve got been buying and selling now for 15 years and with out the fixed improvement of merchandise and striving for extra from our formulations, we might not be right here.
“Glorious customer support can also be crucial,” he added. “As a small firm, we can’t depend on giant advertising and marketing budgets and should depend on word-of-mouth referrals a variety of the time. With out providing excessive ranges of customer support, these referrals wouldn’t exist.”
The current announcement that Mexar was awarded OEKO-TEX ECO PASSPORT certification validates the trail the corporate has taken.
“Attaining the Eco Passport was an enormous win for us,” Dr. Hancock mentioned. “There may be elevated stress on all firms to show their eco credentials. We try to create the perfect formulations through the use of the least impactful uncooked supplies. For instance, we try to supply as a lot of our uncooked supplies as near house as potential with out compromising on high quality. We’ve got re-formulated a variety of our inks over the past couple of years to take away a number of the extra dangerous glycols and at all times search for accountable sources. For instance, all of the glycerine we use is from non-palm sourced vegetable inventory.
“Our most up-to-date launches and headline merchandise are our DTF inks (CMYK and White) for the garment ornament market and our roll-to-roll pigment inks for textile ornament,” he famous. “Each of those inks are lined by our Eco Passport and we’re experiencing sturdy progress with each product traces.”
Dr. Hancock famous because the pigment-based textile market grows, he’s optimistic for the way forward for Mexar.
“We’ve got a incredible younger crew who’re continually working behind the scenes to develop new merchandise, present assist or manufacturing our present traces,” he mentioned. “The textile printing trade is experiencing a revolution in its shift in the direction of digital printing, and we wish to assume we’ve got performed a component in that improvement – particularly relating to the work we’ve got finished on pigment-based textile inks. While not a variety of finish customers can have heard of Mexar, our formulations can have branched out additional than most individuals realise by means of the partnerships we’ve got had through the years.
“For Mexar, my outlook for the following 5 years is that our manufacturing capability might want to improve considerably to maintain up with the demand,” Dr. Hancock added. “The pigment inkjet textile printing market has solely simply began to scratch the floor and there’s a lot of room for progress.”
BOXED INFO:
Mexar Ltd
Unit 4B
Whitehouse Highway Industrial Property
Whitehouse Highway
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE15 6LN, UK
Tel: +44 (0) 191 447 3414
www.mexar.co.uk
Main Merchandise: Pigment-based digital textile inks.