Who is leading the future of flexo? The game of the three major plate-making systems, the future direction of flexo printing has been determined!
Judging from the market situation in 2025, the overall number of newly launched flexographic plate products is still limited, and the technical pattern of the flexographic plate market has not fundamentally changed. At present, the mainstream plate-making route is still concentrated in the three major systems of solvent version, washed version and thermal version. In addition to the above routes, there are also other technical paths such as liquid version and direct engraving version in the industry, but due to their relatively limited application fields and small market share, this article will not discuss them.
Three mainstream plate making systems
Among the three mainstream plate making systems, solvent plates have long occupied a dominant position in the flex version market with their wide applicability, mature process system and high market acceptance, and their overall market share is significantly ahead of washed plates and thermal plates. Whether in terms of format adaptability, print resistance, ink transfer ability or process fault tolerance, solvent plate still has the strongest comprehensive adaptability.
However, from the perspective of environmental protection and compliance, the washed version and the thermal version also have irreplaceable technical value. As an important technical direction of solvent-free plate making, thermal plate making has significant advantages in reducing VOCs emissions, simplifying the plate making process, and improving plate making efficiency. Washable plates also have the advantages of fast plate making speed and relatively low environmental burden, but their applications are currently more concentrated in the field of label printing using UV inks.
At the regional application level, thermal plates have been widely used in the label and flexible packaging printing industry in North America, and have shown significant advantages in VOCs emission reduction and plate making. However, from the perspective of technical boundaries, the thermal version is still constrained by the performance of the plate and the application scenario. Its applicability remains limited in high-quality, large-format, high-print resistance, high ink transfer requirements, or extreme printing situations.
Washable plates also have their inherent constraints, including cost structure, final print quality, and range of applications, making them difficult to fully replace in a wider range of flexo applications.
On the whole, if the solvent plate can achieve substantial improvements in environmental compliance and plate-making efficiency in the future, its dominance in the field of flexographic plates will still be maintained for a long time. This also determines that in the foreseeable future, solvent, washable and thermal versions will coexist in parallel for a long time until a certain technology route forms an overwhelming comprehensive advantage in key dimensions such as performance, cost and compliance.
01
FleneX Midori – Washable version optimized for LEDs
In 2025, Fujifilm released the FleneX Pro system, including the latest washing flexo and water treatment system. Fujifilm claims that the washable flexographic version of the FleneX Midori is optimized for LED exposure and can reproduce up to 1% dots at 200 lines per inch. At the same time, the supporting FleneX Pure washable version of the filtration system has been launched, which has a high level of cleanliness in terms of filtration.
02
AWP-CLFQ – Quartz certified washable flexo
In 2025, Asahi Kasei launched the AWP-CLFQ washable flexo, CLFQ is the abbreviation of Clean Flat Quartz, the name contains several meanings, CleanPlate is Asahi Kasei's claimed clean plate making technology, Flat indicates that the plate is a flat top dot, Quartz means that the plate is suitable for ESKO's Quartz laser technology. At the same time, Asahi Kasei also claimed that the version has passed ESKO's Quartz certification. Since the installed capacity of engraving machines equipped with Quartz laser technology is extremely limited, whether this technology can really break through the current quality limit of black film flexographic will still need to wait for more packaging products to be verified.
03
Laminated flexible version and aluminum-based glazed plate - build a rich product line
As a leading enterprise in domestic flexible versions, in 2025, Lekai Huaguang will add laminated flexible product lines to the existing dome version and self-flat top product lines, including laser engraving thermal imaging black film and special laminated flexible versions.
When making plates, the thermal imaging film is first engraved by a laser machine, and then the laminating film is used to compound the plate after the back exposure, and then the main exposure is carried out. The rest of the steps are exactly the same as the normal solvent version system. The advantages of this technology are:
(1) Strong device compatibility: It can be compatible with most existing laser engraving equipment, and has launched thermal imaging films suitable for 830nm and 1064nm laser machines.
(2) Good process continuity: fully compatible with the existing digital process, users can continue to use the original netting technology.
(3) Significantly improved efficiency: The energy required for thermal imaging film engraving is much lower than that of traditional digital black film, which can greatly improve the engraving efficiency. For example, on ESKO machines, the required laser energy of less than 1 J/cm² can achieve plate making results that would otherwise require 3.2 J/cm² of laser energy, significantly increasing production speeds.
(4) Higher accuracy of dots: lamination technology can completely isolate oxygen and achieve 1:1 replication of dots, which can effectively avoid problems such as denting.
Compared with lamination technology, the current black film flexographic version generally has a long engraving time, the surface screen technology is restricted by the engraving technology, and the space for further improvement of printing density is limited, making it difficult to completely overcome the disadvantages caused by the concave dots and achieve true 1:1 dot replication. Laminating technology still maintains a series of advantages in plate making technology, of course, this technology requires an additional laminating machine, and a step is added to the process, which are the limitations of this technology.
In addition to the laminated flexible version, Lekai Huaguang's aluminum-based glazing flexible version has also received good feedback from domestic and foreign users after the product upgrade. Flexographic glazing has been quite popular in offset printing, and the flexible version of the traditional PET substrate has been proven to have many problems, mainly because the sheet base is easy to be pulled and deformed, and the printing plate print resistance rate decreases under heavy pressure. For a long time, the high price of imported aluminum-based flexible version has discouraged many users. The aluminum-based varnished flexible version M116 and DM116 launched by Lekai Huaguang are designed for traditional and digital plate-making processes, with high aluminum-based tensile strength and high print resistance, suitable for water-based and UV varnishes, and have been widely used in cigarette packs, wine packs, stamps, lottery tickets, anti-counterfeiting printing, especially in banknote printing performance well, this product is also the current printing plate used by China Banknote Printing Corporation for RMB printing.
The future development of flexo plate manufacturing
Looking ahead, the core driving force for the sustainable development of flexographic printing has not fundamentally changed. Cost, quality, sustainability and efficiency will continue to be the main themes of technological evolution and will play a role in the evolution of the flexo printing system for a long time. In this context, the field of flexo printing is expected to present the following definite technological development trends.
Flexo printing will continue to develop in China and major economies around the world
First, from a macro perspective, flexo printing will continue to develop in China and major economies around the world. In the field of packaging printing, flexo printing still has significant advantages in terms of medium and long single stability, material adaptability and comprehensive cost, and its process status is difficult to be replaced by other printing methods in the short term.
The flexible version technology will still develop in parallel around the three major systems of solvent version, washable version and thermal version
Second, in the technical path of plate making, flexible plate technology will still develop in parallel around the three major systems of solvent version, washed version and thermal version. With its maturity, scope of application, and process flexibility, the solvent version is likely to remain dominant overall for a considerable period of time. At the same time, the tightening of environmental regulations and the continuous rise of corporate compliance pressure have made washable and thermal versions gain more room for development in some application fields, and their market share is expected to gradually expand.
Artificial intelligence technology will continue to penetrate the prepress field
Third, artificial intelligence technology will continue to penetrate the prepress field. In the short term, AI is more likely to replace local high-repetitive work links in the prepress process, such as retouching, color separation, and some standardized processing tasks. In the medium to long term, AI has the potential to reconstruct existing complex and fragmented prepress workflows, which will have a substantial impact on the organization of traditional prepress systems.
The performance of plate-making equipment continues to improve
Fourth, the performance of plate making equipment continues to improve, and the progress of laser imaging, exposure and plate making systems in resolution, stability and automation will gradually narrow the gap between flexo printing and other printing methods, and further enhance the advantages of flexo printing in terms of production efficiency and comprehensive cost.
Participants in China's flexo printing supply chain will continue to improve in terms of comprehensive competitiveness
Fifth, from the perspective of industrial structure, participants in China's flexo printing supply chain will continue to improve in terms of comprehensive competitiveness. Whether it is in terms of equipment, plates or system integration capabilities, more and more Chinese companies are gradually entering the international market and playing a more important role in the global flexo printing industry chain.
In general, the future development of flexographic printing has a solid industrial and technical foundation, and the development of flexographic printing in China is also worth looking forward to. On the premise of rationally understanding the challenges and technical boundaries, continuous progress at the process, equipment and system level will help push flexographic technology to new heights.