Sustainability in flexographic printing is rarely one large decision — it accumulates through hundreds of smaller ones made at press level every shift. How much substrate is consumed before the press reaches acceptable quality. How long a plate set lasts before it degrades. How many meters of printed material are produced per hour of energy consumed. For wide-web flexible packaging printers in the Americas, these variables add up to a significant environmental and commercial footprint. The OVX 201 adhesive, introduced as a new option within Lohmann's DuploFLEX system, addresses several of them directly.
Reducing Make-Ready Waste Through Greater Process Stability
Every make-ready cycle produces a period during which the press is running but the output is not yet sellable. The substrate consumed during this window — before color, registration, and print quality reach specification — is waste in the most direct sense: material and energy expended for nothing that reaches a customer. The length of that window is determined in part by how sensitive the press setup is to variation in machine parameters, press speed, and mechanical bounce.
DuploFLEX foams feature flexible polyethylene reinforcement on both sides of the foam core, creating a structure that distributes the forces generated during printing evenly and dampens vibration effectively. This makes the printing process less reactive to the kind of parameter variation that is unavoidable during press run-up — speed ramps, temperature stabilisation, impression pressure settling. The OVX 201 adhesive reinforces this stability on the plate interface: it allows for repositioning, but then guarantees perfect plate position without edge lift and without the need for any additional tape. A press setup that reaches specification faster generates less unsellable material in the process.
More Sellable Output Per Hour of Press Running Time
A press consuming energy while running is either producing sellable material or it is not. The ratio between the two is one of the more meaningful sustainability metrics available to a print operation — not because it maps directly to a carbon figure, but because it captures the efficiency of the entire system: substrate, energy, chemistry, and labor, all converted into output that has commercial value.
The DuploFLEX foam construction's capacity for fast, accurate compression and recovery allows the press to run at higher speeds without the print quality degradation — dot gain, bounce marks, registration shift — that would otherwise require a speed reduction or a further make-ready intervention. The OVX 201 product's lower sensitivity to machine parameters and bounce contributes to this: the plate remains stable across a wider range of operating conditions, which means the press can maintain higher output speeds without sacrificing print quality. More sellable material per unit of energy consumed is both a commercial and an environmental outcome.
Extending Plate Life to Reduce Downstream Waste
"Flexographic plates represent a significant material investment, and their service life is directly influenced by the mechanical conditions they experience during printing and handling. Friction during plate removal is one of the less visible contributors to plate wear — over repeated mounting and demounting cycles, adhesive residue, tearing, and surface damage accumulate, shortening the usable life of a plate set and eventually sending it to waste."
The OVX 201 adhesive is designed to release plates cleanly without surface damage, reducing the mechanical stress of demounting to the plate surface. Beyond removal, the DuploFLEX foam construction compensates for the friction forces generated during the print process itself — the flexible PE reinforcement distributes load across the foam structure rather than concentrating stress at the plate interface, reducing wear across the full print run. A plate that lasts longer through more cycles before reaching end of life represents a direct reduction in the waste stream associated with plate production, disposal, and replacement.
Conclusion
The sustainability case for a plate mounting tape is not made in a single dramatic claim — it is built from the compounding effect of less make-ready waste, more efficient use of press running time, and longer plate service life. DuploFLEX with the OVX 201 adhesive addresses all three, as a direct consequence of the technical properties built into both the foam construction and the adhesive design rather than as a stated environmental objective.
For wide-web flexible packaging printers in the Americas looking to reduce waste at press level, the OVX 201 adhesive is worth evaluating as part of your DuploFLEX setup.
To find out whether the OVX 201 adhesive is the right configuration for your press and substrate portfolio, contact the Lohmann Americas FLEXperts.
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