DuPont Cyrel Solutions has introduced the new Cyrel Lightning plate family at the FTA’s Fall Conference in Frisco, TX, 3-06 October. The new printing plates are reportedly optimized for UV-LED exposure systems, such as the Esko XPS Crystal, to make full use of these systems’ capabilities. According to Dupont, the benefits of the plates include a further optimized match between access time and plate performance, while not compromising the print quality.

Previously, exposure settings on LED units often had to be adjusted for either higher quality or shorter access time. The company says that Cyrel Lightning plates challenge this as they were formulated from the ground up with UV-LED exposure characteristics in mind.

“Cyrel Lightning plates use chemistries with tailored UV profiles to achieve tunability between surface- and through-cures. This innovation enables a balanced cure that can be tailored to the unique dynamics of a scanned LED exposure sequence. At the same time, it provides sufficient through-cure using a finely tuned UV absorption profile,” says Suniti Moudgil, global technology leader at DuPont.

Cyrel LSH is the first of the new range of photopolymers plates and will be available in 045 and 067 gauges; it is solvent processable and comes with certified exposure recipes in the latest software of the Esko XPS Crystal units.

Cyber Graphics, a tradeshop from Memphis Tennessee, was one of the pioneers in adapting UV-LED technology in their prepress operation and has been involved early during the external evaluation of the new photopolymer. “In flexo, we constantly talk about driving process optimization. So, having a plate that is tuned for LED exposures, driving throughput, not having the exposure be a bottleneck with LED technology, while still delivering the printing quality that we expect, was a great benefit to our business,” said Kevin Bourquin, vice president at Cyber Graphics.

Cyrel LSH is a hard durometer plate with smooth surface, ideally suited for advanced surface screenings and optimized for a broad range of substrates and clean press runs in flexible packaging, tag and label and paper printing applications.