Research & Development

The Kao Corporation, which includes Kao Collins and Kao Chimigraf, is a global manufacturing leader with a product portfolio that includes inks, chemicals, and consumer products. This variety of expertise allows Kao to leverage our knowledge, research, and experience from all divisions to develop solutions that deliver results.

Kao considers R&D as the heartbeat of the business. Our many success stories start with our commitment to embracing customer challenges. That’s where innovation begins when producing the suitable ink for our customers and shaping the future of inkjet printing. The most significant innovations come from our customers who use our ink products, not our chemists.

Developing Innovative Inks

Our continuous R&D endeavours to collaborate with teams within the industrial printing communities to find common and unique solutions to every possible challenge, adding business value and customer delight by introducing new innovative ink technologies.

LUNAJET

Rigorous R&D led to the creation of LUNAJET inks, the first eco-friendly, water-based ink designed for digital printing on plastic flexible film packaging and other non-porous substrates. LUNAJET’s advantages make it the best ink option for industrial printers of food packaging and pharmaceutical packaging.

SIGMA

Our customers are delighted to use SIGMA inks because the long decap time delivers an ink that does not dry quickly. Kao developed this solution when our R&D identified challenges customers faced with short decap times of solvent inks and unproductive downtime on wiping and purging printheads. SIGMA has become the industry’s inkjet ink of choice because it cures fast with deeper blacks and high durability, offering an industry-leading 24-month shelf life with 12-hour decap time.

NEXXO

A revolutionary Funai thermal inkjet cartridge, combined with Kao’ Nexxo solvent ink, now makes marking and coding on curved surfaces possible with double the throw distance. This new offering produces high-resolution expiration dates and lot codes on food and pharmaceutical packaging.

Formulating Custom Inks

For customers who want to leverage the robust R&D capabilities of Kao to develop specialized inks, we offer custom ink formulation services that support a variety of industrial printing needs.

Our white-labelled ink manufacturing services offer flexibility, whether you need to specify your ink’s performance requirements or ingredients. We invite you to partner with us to build custom industrial printing inks that adapt to your most challenging substrate complexities.

Sustainability

Kao strives for production and manufacturing methods that reduce our impact on the environment. Through our ongoing commitment to improving products through Research and Development, we have formulated eco-friendly inks that contribute to increased sustainability.

Kao also continues to research and develop new solutions that reduce the carbon footprint of manufacturing, producing, and distributing industrial printing products throughout the world, including eco-friendly packaging and inks for printing on recyclable materials.

Learn More about Our Commitment to Sustainability