Designing a Custom Ink System for LVT Flooring in Record Time
Hi, I’m Steve McEntee, Director of Sales - Inks and Coatings at Penn Color. Nothing excites me more than helping customers unlock new business opportunities. One such opportunity came when a client approached us with a bold vision: to Luxury Vinyl Tile (LVT) flooring market which requires printed PVC film. This was uncharted territory for them. While they had deep experience printing on paper, they had never worked with thermoplastic films. Printing on PVC for LVT flooring applications requires a fundamentally different ink system—off-the-shelf options wouldn’t deliver the performance, aesthetics, or compatibility needed with their existing production lines.
To make this vision a reality, they needed a custom, water-based ink system that would deliver high-resolution print quality, withstand chemical exposure, remain flexible through embossing and bending, and serve as a strong binder under heat and pressure between film layers. We leveraged our unique expertise in both thermoplastics and inks & coatings, to partner closely with the customer and build a solution from the ground up. The project moved fast, taking just six months from the initial brief to commercial launch.
The process began with a deep dive into the application’s requirements: performance, printability, and compatibility with existing assets. Our chemists designed multiple ink prototypes using high-performance resins, colorfast pigments, optimized co-solvents, and adhesion-promoting additives. Each iteration was rigorously tested for print quality, mechanical and chemical resistance, and viscosity stability performance. The final formulation exceeded expectations! We scaled it under real-world industrial conditions on the customer’s equipment, fine-tuned it with feedback from their operators, and validated it for production. Penn Color also ensured a smooth ramp-up by providing training, technical support, and risk-managed sourcing of raw materials.
What began as a high-risk challenge turned into a long-term growth story: in just six months, our client gained a unique, competitive ink system that enabled them to enter an entirely new market. Over the last ten years, this product line has grown into a significant new revenue stream, ultimately justifying a facility expansion to support their new thermoplastic film business.
