New chromaticity: pigments and inks for infinite aesthetic possibilities

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For Inco, colour has always been the cornerstone on which to base research and develop new products. Color has always been one of the most important and characterizing elements for the ceramic sector and thanks to which it is possible to create productions that stand out for their authenticity and depth.

Inco presents two brand new ranges of products, pigments, and inks, with an important synergy, able to expand the colorimetric gamut and to give ceramic productions a new depth and naturalness.

Thus Natura was born: a brand new range of dyes from engobe and enamel. The “High Solid HSC ink series” has been expanded with new tones of color.

What features do the new Natura dye series bring?

First of all, they have a high colorimetric rendering and are characterized by bright tones. Thanks to their use inside the engobe, or the enamel, they offer greater depth and naturalness to ceramic productions.

Natura’s dye series is also able to minimize issues related to digital printing. By coloring the engobe correctly, any lines or deficiencies that occasionally may form in digital printing, are minimized to the eye for an excellent aesthetic result. Not neglecting the fact that there is also a major reduction in ink consumption, which leads to high economic return.

The range of Natura’s engobe dyes is complete and covers the entire colorimetric gamut, among the primary tones developed we find: black, blue, yellow, petroleum green, aquamarine, turquoise, golden brown, brown-red, pink, coral pink.
Inco, faithful to the Taylor Made concept, which has characterized it since its inception, according to the needs of each individual customer is also able to develop extremely performing customized shades.

The range of High Solid HSC Inco inks has seen the birth of new shades that allow to expand the colorimetric gamut in an important way for the creation of new products with colours never seen before. The new High Solid inks developed, like the previous ones, have at least 50% of inorganic pigment formulation content.
The new colorimetric tones developed start from the development of new pigments – of the latest generation with a highly performing behavior both at high temperatures and in a hostile chemical environment. This is how new high-intensity inks with the maximum specific colours were brought to light!
Here are our new developed customized colored inks:
deep yellow, deep black, emerald green, new red -brown, peacock blue, turquoise, pinkone, extra white, beige.

• New intense yellow ink : Yellow helps to importantly widen the chromatic gamut that we have available. However, we know that often the problem of this product lies in the color’s intensity — which under liquid ink form struggles to reach the levels we need —. Inco has therefore revised the traditional manufacturing process of the yellow pigment praseodymium, in the light of the most modern technologies, which combined with high- quality raw materials give us an extremely performing pigment. The new Deep Yellow Ink that derives from it, has therefore been designed to maintain a high-intensity type of yellow point, as well as ensuring an excellent firing performance.
  Inco’s new Deep Yellow ink does not show any sedimentation or dryness problems — it is for this reason, specific cleaning protocols are not required.
  The certainty of a wide color gamut and high intensity.
• New deep Black ink: it has a neutral and deep tone, free of any chromatic drift and therefore extremely natural. Associated with the Nature’s dye series, it develops its intense and neutral tone even better and will give back extremely real graphics, such as a Sarah Noir marble or some fake cement, indistinguishable from the originals.
• New Emerald Green Ink: this is a new shade for the Inco ink range. Often this color is considered particular and ceramically underestimated. In combination with the deep yellow ink, however, it allows us to obtain shades ranging from a delicate aquamarine to a bright alpine green.
• New Red-Brown ink: The new pigment with which Inco’s new High-Solid ink has been developed has been designed to combine high red color value & intensity to the final ink.
  If not developed correctly, this type of ink colour will most likely have a negative outcome — it may develope a marked orange shade and make everything turn out into a greenish one, or, in an attempt to increase the intensity, the value of red could be reduced thus obtaining a dark tone —, but Inco’s new developments have taken into account all these aspects and have developed a new ink with high red intensity value.
• New Cyan ink: this new ink allows us to obtain beautiful aquamarine tones in many different shades, otherwise impossible to obtain. Indeed, it allows us to create modern graphics and adds naturalness to different types of marble.
• New Turquoise ink: completes and enriches the color range allowing us to space between precious stones and the most traditional majolica.
• New PinkOne ink: we first developed the dye — making it stable with different baking, and resistant even in a chemically hostile environment —, then we created the ink by looking for the optimal concentration and particle-size distribution, to obtain the maximum value on the specific color. The result is a product that used in combination with the Deep Yellow and the New Red-Brown develops a range of reds that allow us to create from the most delicate pink to the most energetic red onyxes. All this, by managing our digital machine as we would do with regular ink: using the inks with the usual attention and without the need to empty the bar in case of non-use.
• New Extra-White ink: it allows to obtain extremely high-coverage veining even with low ink discharge. Applied with the color combination it will make it more lively and natural, completing the outline and allowing the creation of increasingly sophisticated materials.

In addition to these ink colours we obviously add on all the shades spacing from mango to any sort of beige, passing on to Golden Yellow & different shades of Honey. Inco remains faithful to its traditional “Taylor-Made” concept also for its inks, making its way through to create the perfect shade for its customers, to meet the production needs of its company.

Thanks to the important synergy between the simultaneous use of both Nature’s engobe or enamel pigments and Inco’s High Solid HSC inks, we are able to offer a significantly expanded color gamut and therefore obtain the highest aesthetic and technical caliber material.

Below we have some examples of achievements:

Sahara Noir

A voguish marble created by colouring the enamel with black and pink obtaining a pearly grey background, which we work on with HSC Blu, New Red-Brown, Golden Yellow, Deep Black, Extra White inks, especially with the deep black ink, that gives us the key to create a marble with a neutral black shade, de-voiding any chromatic drift and therefore extremely natural, as well as conferring an extreme depth and naturalness.
The protagonist ink also proves to be the extra white ink, capable of creating high-coverage veining also on a grey background, making graphics stand out more & creating further naturalness and depth.

Blue Ocean Marble

An extremely voguish marble, a new stylish proposal that can be created in an extremely realistic way with deep and vibrant colors thanks to the new pigments and new inks.
It is possible to create a perfect Ocean Blue marble by coloring the engobe, or the enamel with a delicate aquamarine, obtained by mixing the pigments of the Nature’s series peacock blue and turquoise.
To finish, with a digital machine array of the following digital inks: peacock blue, turquoise, new red- brown, intense yellow, deep black, extra white. Synergy between colors for an extremely natural depth and intensity.

Red Onyx

Although this marble has been requested out on the market for some time it is still hard to create.
Red shades have always been difficult to replicate in the ceramic world due to ceramic conditions, the aggression of the frits rather than the high cooking temperatures, which generally diminish the color making it less intense and red.
Inco has developed new engobe pigments for the colors of pink, coral red, bright pink that allow to give greater red-intensity-depth. We recommend coloring the engobe by mixing coral, yellow and pink pigments in order to obtain a bright pink result.
So then we developed a new pink pigment, thanks to which we were able to create a new extremely intense & high-temperature resistant ink, which combined with the new deep yellow and the new red brown ink it is possible to obtain red colors with extremely detailed shades .
The combination of both the Nature series pigments and high solid inks, developed with new extremely performing pigments, allows us to expand the gamut and obtain unimaginable colors. In addition, pink and deep yellow inks do not require special protocols for their management or machine cleaning.

Light Green Onyx

A very sought after precious and classic onyx. To give naturalness, compactness, depth,
Inco recommends : coloring the support, engobe or enamel, of a delicate aquamarine obtained by mixing the green, yellow, turquoise pigments together. Then proceed with the digital decoration with peacock blue, turquoise, New Red-Brown, Deep Yellow, Black& extra white inks.

Green Alps Marble

It is possible to create a beautiful Alpine green onyx, extremely fashionable and highly sought after, by coloring the engobe or enamel with the Nature series dyes: green, yellow & turquoise to obtain a delicate aquamarine. To then digitally decorate with the following ink sequence: peacock blue, new red brown, dark yellow, green, black & extra white.

 

Therefore, new chromaticities are here today: a new series of engobe pigments and a new series of extremely High-Solid performing inks for infinite aesthetic possibilities.