JP4334876B2 - Information recording medium, layer structure of information recording medium, and printing ink for information recording medium - Google Patents

Description

[0001]
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an improvement in workability of embossing and the like of an information recording medium such as a magnetic card and an IC card, and an improvement in appearance visibility. More specifically, the present invention relates to an information recording medium that prevents cracking of an embossed part when embossed characters are embossed on a hologram foil transfer part on the surface of a card or the like, and a layer configuration thereof, or a printing ink used therefor.
Therefore, the field of use of the present invention relates to the field of manufacture or use of information recording media such as magnetic cards and IC cards.
[0002]
[Prior art]
For information recording media such as magnetic cards and IC cards, an individual design is formed on the surface of the card and a transfer foil such as a hologram is transferred, or a mark unique to the issuing company is printed, in order to make the card ID and differentiation. To be done.
These parts are parts that perform important functions for preventing counterfeiting and exhibit design characteristics, and are often specially processed to prevent counterfeiting, forging, and mark replacement.
[0003]
The layer structure of a conventional information recording medium will be described with reference to FIGS.
6 and 7 are cross-sectional views showing the layer structure of a conventional information recording medium, and FIGS. 8 and 9 are cross-sectional views showing transfer films used for the conventional information recording medium.
In the layer configuration of the information recording medium in FIG. 6, transparent base materials 13 and 14 are laminated on both surfaces of the white base materials 11 and 12. The white substrate 11 has a pattern printing unit 18, and a pattern printing unit 17 is further transferred to the surface side transparent substrate 13 side.
A transfer foil 4 such as a hologram is transferred onto a part of the transferred pattern, and an opaque silk print 20 in which aluminum powder or the like is dispersed is formed on the lower surface of the transfer foil 4. Transparent silk medium printing 16 is performed on the portions other than the transfer foil.
[0004]
The opaque or colored portion on the lower surface of the hologram foil should preferably have good transparency. However, if it is made transparent, the coating strength will increase, so that the character emboss that will be inserted later into the transfer foil will be cracked. There is a problem that it is easy. When the crack of the character embossed portion becomes large, the white base material 11 is looked into, so it is particularly disliked as a defective card.
Embossed cracks tend to cause large cracks if there is a transparent medium printing layer that does not contain pigments. Therefore, in order to avoid transparency without fail, inorganic pigments such as aluminum powder as described above are used in the medium ink. Etc. are mixed into an opaque state or a colored state.
This is because, when aluminum powder or the like enters, minute cracks are likely to enter, but this has the effect of preventing large cracks.
[0005]
In addition, the issue company mark and the like are printed on the transfer film surface in the same manner as other transfer pictures, but the lower surface of the issue company mark is printed with a silk screen medium ink. This is because white by printing is not sufficient, so that the white color of the white base material can be directly visually recognized to effectively express the white color of the mark portion. In particular, a medium ink containing no pigment is used.
[0006]
FIG. 7 shows an example of an information recording medium having a magnetic tape. Although the concealing layer 15 and the pattern printing unit 17 are formed by transferring on the magnetic tape 2, the other configurations are the same as those in the case of FIG.
[0007]
FIG. 8 is a transfer film for manufacturing the information recording medium of FIG.
The transfer film has a configuration in which a release layer / protective layer 19 is provided on the transfer film substrate 8, and a pattern printing unit 17 and an opaque silk print 20 are printed on a part of the release layer / protective layer 19. In addition, you may provide the anchor layer for raising adhesive strength between the peeling layer and protective layer 19 and pattern printing.
Although the release layer / protective layer 19 functions as a release layer as a transfer film, it remains on the surface of the information recording medium after transfer and functions as a protective layer. An opaque silk silk print 20 by silk screen printing is printed on the lower surface of the transfer foil 4 such as a hologram foil, and a transparent silk medium print 16 is printed on the surface of the pattern printing unit 17.
The transparent silk medium printing 16 is intended to provide transparency and secure adhesion to the transparent substrate 13.
[0008]
FIG. 9 is a transfer film for manufacturing the information recording medium of FIG.
In this case, a concealing layer 15 is provided on the magnetic layer in order to conceal the magnetic layer. Other configurations are the same as those in FIG.
[0009]
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
At the time of manufacturing the information recording medium, after the white base materials 11 and 12 are press-laminated, the transparent base materials 13 and 14 are press-laminated to the white base material and the transfer film is used as the release layer / protective layer 19 at the same time as the card surface. In this manner, the opaque silk print 20, the concealing layer 15, and the transparent silk medium print 16 are transferred so as to contact the transparent substrate 13, and the transfer film substrate 8 is peeled and removed.
However, magnetic cards and IC cards manufactured in this way must be provided with opaque silk printing to ensure the embossing quality of the transfer foil transfer part in addition to transparent silk medium printing, which increases the number of processes. There was a problem.
Further, when the transfer foil and the opaque silk printing are displaced, the opaque silk printing is visually recognized and becomes unfavorable in appearance. Therefore, severe processing accuracy is required to ensure the appearance.
Therefore, the present invention seeks to solve such a problem by improving the medium-lower ink for transfer foil such as hologram.
[0010]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
The first of the gist of the present invention for solving the above-mentioned problems is that after transferring a transfer pattern having a medium ink layer by silk screen printing on the surface to a medium substrate, a transfer foil is transferred onto the medium ink layer, and the transfer An information recording medium for embossing characters on a foil portion, characterized in that a scale-like inorganic pigment is dispersed in the medium ink layer, and the medium ink layer is transparent or translucent. .
[0011]
The second of the gist of the present invention is that in a layer structure of an information recording medium in which a white base material / transparent base material / medium ink layer by silk screen / transfer foil are laminated in this order, a medium ink layer by silk screen printing is used. Is a layer structure of an information recording medium characterized in that a scale-like inorganic pigment is dispersed and a silk ink medium ink layer is transparent or translucent.
[0012]
The third aspect of the present invention is that a white substrate / print layer / transparent substrate / medium print layer with silk screen / protective layer are laminated in this order in the layer structure of the information recording medium, and the medium with silk screen print is used. The printed layer has a layer structure of an information recording medium characterized in that a scale-like inorganic pigment is dispersed and a silk-screened medium printed layer is transparent or translucent.
[0013]
The fourth of the gist of the present invention is a medium ink used for the transfer foil of the transfer film for information recording medium, and the medium ink has an average maximum length of 0.1 to 20 μm. A printing ink for an information recording medium, characterized in that a certain scale-shaped inorganic pigment is included.
Since it is such a printing ink, it is excellent in embossing suitability.
[0014]
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is to prevent occurrence of “cracking” by embossing and improve appearance visibility and processability in character embossing of an information recording medium, particularly character embossing applied to a hologram foil transfer portion.
Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an information recording medium of the present invention, FIG. 1 (A) is a plan view, FIG. 1 (B) is a cross-sectional view showing a layer structure along line AA in FIG. 1 (A), and FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view showing a layer structure in another embodiment of the information recording medium, and FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view showing a layer structure of a transfer film used for manufacturing the information recording medium.
[0015]
As shown in FIG. 1A, the information recording medium 1 has a magnetic tape 2 on both the front and back surfaces, a transfer foil 4 such as a hologram foil, a mark printing 17m, a character embossing 3, a pattern printing unit 17, and the like. And has the same appearance as a normal information recording medium.
As shown in FIG. 1B, the substrate of the information recording medium 1 has a configuration in which the transparent substrates 13 and 14 are laminated on both surfaces of the white substrates 11 and 12. It can take the structure of. The magnetic tape 2 previously transferred to the transparent substrate 13 is used. The magnetic tape 2 may also be provided on the transparent substrate 14 side.
[0016]
On the transparent substrate 13, there is a silk screen printing by a silk screen (hereinafter referred to as “silk medium printing 9”), and the pattern printing unit 17, a release layer / protective layer on the silk medium printing 9. 19 are sequentially laminated. As described above, the peeling layer / protective layer 19 remains on the surface of the information recording medium 1 and functions as a protective layer.
Each of the above layers is formed by transferring a printing layer previously formed on a transfer film described later onto the surface of the transparent substrate 13.
Since the thickness of each of the white base materials 11 and 12 is about 280 μm and the thickness of each of the transparent base materials 13 and 14 is about 100 μm, each printed layer is within about several μm. Please understand that the thickness is shown enlarged.
[0017]
A transfer foil 4 such as a hologram foil is transferred to the outermost surface of the card. Although the character emboss 3 is also provided on this surface, the embossed state is not shown in FIG. On the lower surface of the transfer foil 4 such as a hologram, a peeling layer / protective layer 19 and a silk-medium printing 9 are provided on the lower side.
The information recording medium of the present invention is characterized in that a scale-like inorganic pigment is dispersed in the printing ink of the silk medium printing 9, and the medium ink layer is made transparent or translucent. Thereby, as will be described later, effects such as no large emboss cracks are generated.
FIG. 2 shows another embodiment of the information recording medium, but shows that the pattern printing unit 18 is also formed on the surface of the white base material 11. The pattern printing portion is printed on the surface of the base material 11 in advance without being transferred.
[0018]
FIG. 3 shows the layer structure of the transfer film 10 used for manufacturing the information recording medium. Unlike the conventional transfer film shown in FIGS. 8 and 9, the opaque silk print 20 below the hologram transfer foil is eliminated, and the transparent silk medium print 9 other than the transfer foil is common. There is an effect that the process can be reduced by common use of the medium printing.
Such a transfer film 10 is provided with a silk medium print 9 by silk screen printing after printing a release layer / protective layer 19, a pattern printing portion 17 and a mark print 17 m on the transfer film substrate 8 by offset printing. It is a thing.
In addition, when providing a concealing layer on the magnetic tape 2, you may provide a concealing layer as needed.
[0019]
The transfer of the transfer film 10 is performed together in the process of press laminating the transparent base materials 13 and 14 to the white base materials 11 and 12. The silk-medium printing 9 is laminated so as to be in contact with the surface of the transparent base material 13, and each printing layer is transferred to the transparent base material 13 by introducing a press material between the mirror plates of the press machine and applying heat pressure. . After the transfer, the transfer film substrate 8 is peeled and removed.
The silk-medium printing 9 can be printed with a common medium ink, but an improved version of the conventional silk-medium ink is used.
[0020]
Transfer of the transfer foil 4 such as a hologram is performed by pressing the transfer foil with hot pressure. A normal hologram foil has a hologram forming layer with a thickness of about 5 μm and is coated with an acrylic-vinyl acetate adhesive.
After the transfer of the hologram foil 4, the character emboss 3 is performed on the card surface including the hologram foil portion (FIG. 1). The embossing holds the card between the male and female type rings and presses it from the male mold side to form a character pattern protruding in a convex shape on the card surface. The height of the emboss is about 0.40 to 0.48 mm from the card surface.
After the character embossing, the Al deposited film is transferred to decorate the surface of the embossed character 3. By pressing the top of the Al vapor-deposited film with a soft rubber material, only the protruding portions of the characters are decorated with silver.
[0021]
FIG. 4 is a view showing a character embossed portion of an information recording medium according to the present invention, and FIG. 5 is a view showing a character embossed portion of an information recording medium using a conventional silk medium ink. In either case, the state after transfer of the Al deposited film is indicated by character embossing on the hologram transfer foil 4 part.
In the case of FIG. 5, a conventional transparent silk medium is provided under the hologram transfer foil, but a large crack 6 is generated even when embossed under the same conditions.
On the other hand, in the case of FIG. 4, although the fine crack 5 has arisen, a big crack is not recognized. Further, even when the conventional opaque silk printing in which the aluminum powder inorganic pigment is dispersed is provided under the hologram transfer foil, a large crack does not occur even when embossed under the same conditions. In the figure, the hatched portion is a bright portion due to the reflection on the embossed surface, not a crack.
[0022]
In the case of character embossing, silver foil transfer is performed on the surface after embossing. However, if a large crack is generated, the silver foil is not transferred, so that the white surface of the white base material 11 is exposed and the appearance is remarkably impaired. It will be. From this, it is presumed that at least the transparent base material is cracked. On the other hand, in the case of the fine crack 5, the silver deposited film is transferred and the white surface of the white substrate 12 is not exposed, so that the appearance is not impaired.
In FIG. 5, when transparent silk printing is provided at the lower part of the hologram transfer foil, large cracks 6 are generated compared to the small number of fine cracks 5. It is thought that the mechanism that prevents the occurrence of eruption is not working.
[0023]
The difference in the occurrence of such “cracking” is thought to be largely due to the difference in the ink composition used for silk-medium printing.
That is, in the silk ink for hologram transfer foil used as transparent silk printing, an inorganic pigment is not dispersed in a vinyl resin as shown in the following composition 3.
Also, the conventional silk ink for underlaying hologram transfer foil used for opaque silk printing (colored portion) is a resin in which aluminum particle powder having a diameter of about 10 μm is dispersed in a vinyl resin as shown in composition 2 below. Although cracking does not occur, the bottom of the holo becomes opaque, requiring severe holo processing accuracy and increasing the number of processes.
In the present invention, a scale-like inorganic pigment (barium sulfate) having an average value of a maximum stretch length (maximum distance portion in a projected image of pigment particles) of 0.1 to 20 μm is applied to a vinyl resin as in composition 1. Distributed.
[0024]
In both ink compositions 1 and 2, emboss cracks do not occur, but in the case of ink composition 2, the printed part is opaque (or colored). In addition, the emboss crack shown in FIG. 5 uses the ink of the composition 3 below at the lower part of the hologram transfer foil, and the appearance is equivalent to the composition 1, but the emboss crack is caused by not containing an inorganic pigment. ing.
[0025]
<Ink composition 1>
Vinyl chloride resin 50% by weight
Vinyl acetate resin 50% by weight
Inorganic pigment (barium sulfate) 10% by weight
(Average maximum delivery length of 0.1 to 20 μm)
Solvent (cyclohexanone) 20% by weight
<Ink composition 2>
Vinyl chloride resin 50% by weight
Vinyl acetate resin 50% by weight
Inorganic pigment (aluminum particles) 20% by weight
(Average particle size 10 μm)
Solvent (cyclohexanone) 20% by weight
<Ink composition 3>
The same as composition 1 except that the inorganic pigment was omitted.
[0026]
<About embodiment regarding other materials>
(1) A white hard vinyl chloride sheet is preferably used as the white base material, but may be polyethylene terephthalate, polycarbonate, or polypropylene resin as long as it is excellent in printability of silk medium ink.
A PET-G (non-crystalline copolyester resin) sheet may be used.
(2) Although a transparent vinyl chloride sheet can be preferably used for the transparent substrate, polyethylene terephthalate, polycarbonate, polypropylene resin, and PET-G may be used similarly to the white substrate.
(3) For the silk medium ink, a vinyl chloride / vinyl acetate resin or a vinyl chloride / vinyl acetate / vinyl alcohol resin having a softening temperature of 60 to 80 ° C. can be suitably used.
[0027]
(4) The hologram foil forms a hologram on a polyethylene terephthalate film substrate having a thickness of about 20 μm, on a thermoplastic resin, thermosetting resin, or ionizing radiation curable resin having a thickness of about 5 μm via a release layer. In this material, an adhesive layer is formed on the outermost surface of the hologram layer. When the release layer or the adhesive layer is thick, the foil breakage is deteriorated. Therefore, a thin layer having a thickness of 2 to 3 μm or less is used.
(5) The inorganic pigment dispersed in silk main jeux arm ink provided on a transfer foil bottom, sulfuric Baryumu, carbonate Improvement of a Saline, silica (SiO _2), such as titanium oxide (TiO ₂₎ can be used. However, the material is not limited to these, and any material can be used as long as it can maintain transparency or translucency (uncolored state).
[0028]
【Example】
(Example)
An embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS.
<Preparation of transfer film>
A polyethylene terephthalate film having a thickness of 100 μm is used as the transfer film substrate 8, and the release layer / protective layer 19, the pattern printing unit 17, and the mark printing 17 m are printed by offset printing, and then silk-medium printing 9 by silk screen printing. Went. Acrylic resin-based ink was used for offset printing, and silk-screen printing silk-medium printing was performed with the ink of composition 1. Thereby, the transfer film 10 was completed.
[0029]
<Manufacture of information recording media>
As the white base materials 11 and 12, two white hard vinyl chloride sheets having a thickness of 0.28 mm (manufactured by Taihei Chemicals Co., Ltd. “TN828”) are used, and hot pressure (145 ° C., 30 kg / cm) between the white base materials is used. ² for 10 minutes).
Next, the transparent base materials 13 and 14 to which the magnetic tape has been transferred are applied to both sides of the white base material, and the previously prepared transfer film 10 is aligned and overlapped with the surface of the transparent base material 13 and this press preparation is mirror-finished. The laminate was pressed and laminated with hot pressure (120 ° C., 25 kg / cm ² , 10 minutes).
The transfer film substrate 8 was peeled off to obtain the information recording medium 1 of the present invention.
[0030]
A comparative example of the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS.
<Preparation of transfer film>
(Comparative Example 1)
A transfer film was prepared in the same manner as in the Example, except that the lower part of the hologram transfer foil was used except for silk-medium printing, and the lower part of the hologram transfer foil was printed with the ink of the composition 2.
(Comparative Example 2)
The same procedure as in Example was performed except that the ink according to composition 3 was used for silk-medium printing.
[0031]
<Manufacture of information recording media>
The production of the information recording medium was carried out under the same conditions as in the examples except that the configuration of the transfer film was different.
[0032]
The hologram foil 4 was transferred onto the silk medium print of the information recording medium of Example and Comparative Example 2, and the hologram foil 4 was transferred onto the opaque silk print of the information recording medium of Comparative Example 1.
The hologram foil 4 is a material in which a hologram layer made of an acrylic resin having a thickness of about 5 μm and an adhesive layer are formed on a polyethylene terephthalate film substrate having a thickness of 20 μm via a release layer, and the same material is used.
[0033]
Character embossing is performed under normal embossing conditions (embossing height 0.45 mm) on the part after transferring the hologram foil and the part other than the hologram foil, and the character embossing after the transfer of the Al foil is performed with the card after embossing. The part was photographed and enlarged to check for cracks.
The results are as shown in FIGS. 4 and 5, and no large cracks were observed in Examples and Comparative Examples 1, but large cracks (cracks) were observed in Comparative Example 2 where no inorganic pigment was contained in the medium ink. Was recognized. In Comparative Example 1, although emboss cracks did not occur, an opaque colored portion was generated around the hologram foil due to the holo-transfer shift. From the above results, it was confirmed that the best results were obtained with the ink compositions and printing conditions of the examples.
In addition, in the embossing curl and the heat resistance characteristics of the embossing, no significant difference was observed between the example and the comparative examples 1 and 2.
[0034]
【The invention's effect】
As described above, in the information recording medium of the present invention or the layer structure thereof, the transparent ink composition under the hologram foil is improved, so that a large crack (crack) does not occur due to character embossing.
In addition, since transparency is sufficient, the design of white expression is improved, and there is an advantage that it can be shared with the medium ink under the issuing company mark.
The effect of preventing emboss cracks can also be obtained by adopting the same layer structure at portions other than the hologram foil under the protective layer (release layer). This effect is particularly remarkable in the pattern printing section.
The ink for information recording media of the present invention has transparency and embossing resistance and can be suitably used for an emboss card.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an information recording medium of the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view showing a layer structure in another embodiment of the information recording medium.
FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view showing a layer structure of a transfer film used for manufacturing an information recording medium.
FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a character embossed portion when the information recording medium of the present invention is embossed.
FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a character embossed portion when embossing a conventional information recording medium.
FIG. 6 is a sectional view showing a layer structure of a conventional information recording medium.
FIG. 7 is a cross-sectional view showing another layer structure of a conventional information recording medium.
FIG. 8 is a cross-sectional view showing a layer structure of a conventional transfer film.
FIG. 9 is a cross-sectional view showing another layer structure of a conventional transfer film.
[Explanation of symbols]
DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Information recording medium 2 Magnetic tape 3 Character embossing 4 Transfer foils, such as a hologram 5 Fine crack 6 Large crack 7 Bright part 8 Transfer film base material 9 Silk-medium printing 10 Transfer film 11, 12 White base material 13, 14 Transparent base material 15 Concealing layer 16 Transparent silk medium printing 17, 18 Pattern printing part 17m Mark printing 19 Peeling layer and protective layer 20 Opaque silk printing

Claims (9)

In an information recording medium in which a transfer pattern having a medium ink layer by silk screen printing on the surface is transferred to a medium substrate, a transfer foil is transferred onto the medium ink layer, and character embossing is performed on the transfer foil portion. An information recording medium, wherein a scale-like inorganic pigment is dispersed in the ink layer, and the medium ink layer is transparent or translucent. The information recording medium according to claim 1, wherein the transfer foil is a hologram transfer foil. 2. The information recording medium according to claim 1, wherein an average value of the maximum length of the scale-shaped inorganic pigment is 0.1 to 20 [mu] m. In the layer structure of an information recording medium in which a white base / transparent base / silk screen medium ink layer / transfer foil is laminated in this order, a scale-like inorganic pigment is dispersed in the silk screen print medium ink layer. And a layer structure of an information recording medium, wherein the silk screen medium ink layer is transparent or translucent. In the layer structure of the information recording medium in which white substrate / print layer / transparent substrate / medium print layer / protective layer by silk screen are laminated in this order, the medium print layer by silk screen print has a scale-shaped inorganic A layer structure of an information recording medium, wherein a pigment is dispersed and a silkscreen medium print layer is transparent or translucent. The layer structure of the information recording medium according to claim 4, wherein the transfer foil is a hologram transfer foil. 6. The layer structure of an information recording medium according to claim 4, wherein the average value of the maximum span length of the scale-like inorganic pigment is 0.1 to 20 [mu] m. A medium ink for use under a transfer foil of a transfer film for an information recording medium, wherein the medium ink includes a scale-like inorganic pigment having an average maximum length of 0.1 to 20 μm. The printing ink for information recording media characterized by the above-mentioned. 9. The printing ink for information recording medium according to claim 8, wherein the medium ink after dispersion of the inorganic pigment is transparent or translucent.

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