Recuperación de residuos líquidos en la industria de impresión flexográfica ; Liquid waste recovery from flexographic printing industry

The graphic printing industry in Colombia is growing as the generation of hazardous waste associated with printing operations. Most of these are not used, so, they generate additional costs when third parties are required to handle, treat and dispose them. In other cases, they are not adequately disposed generating pollution. It is essential to propose processes that are able to recovery the compounds of these residues to prevent environmental impacts generated by them. At the same time, obtain products that can be reused in the printing ink sector or other value-added products. In a first stage, the recovery of the solvents has been considerate since they represent about 93 % of the total waste mixture, by a simple distillation process were obtained a recovery of approximately 95 % of the solvents in the waste mixture. However, the residue remain has not been used yet. So in the research group of unconventional separation processes of the University of America is doing an investigation that allows the recovery of pigments. Since they have the greater economic cost and their disposition in security cells is expensive, this article focuses on the study of the background of printing industry, its waste and antecedents about technologies used for the treatment of waste ink or samplings chemically similar. ; La industria de impresión gráfica en Colombia se encuentra en crecimiento; no obstante, este mayor desarrollo implica una alta generación de residuos peligrosos asociados a las operaciones de impresión. La mayoría de estos residuos no son aprovechados, lo que genera gastos adicionales, pues se requiere la contratación de terceros para su manejo, tratamiento y disposición final; incluso, en algunos casos, no son dispuestos adecuadamente y generan contaminación. Se hace indispensable desarrollar procesos que permitan la recuperación de los constituyentes de estos residuos, de tal forma que se prevengan impactos ambientales y se obtengan productos que puedan ser reutilizados en el sector de tintas de impresión u ...