A study on blistering resistance of coated paper with a new air permeability tester.

We have developed a new air permeability tester with which we can measure the acceleration of the air permeability of coated paper under high temperatures (300°C) and pressure (4.00 kgf/cm2) during a short time. These conditions are close to the real world in the drying process of web-offset printing press. The acceleration of the air permeability is thought to be an ability in the coating layer to respond to rising water vapor pressure in a short time during the drying process of web-offset printing press.With the new air permeability tester, the correlation between the acceleration of the air permeability and the blistering resistance of various coated papers was investigated. These coated papers were prepared with different binders, amounts of binders, pigment formulations and binder contents in each coating layer.We found that the acceleration of the air permeability was more strongly related to the blistering tendency of coated papers, than conventional air permeability testers. So, the result indicates that the new air permeability tester is very useful in predicting the blistering tendency of coated paper.