Agfa and TFL join forces in genuine leather

Agfa and TFL have entered into a strategic partnership, focusing on the development of Alussa, a dedicated inkjet printing solution to decorate high-quality genuine leathers used by the fashion, upholstery, automotive, aviation and nautical industries.

Alussa is the sum of a number of perfectly matched components. Agfa develops the inkjet printer and dedicated inkjet inks, as well as the software to manage and monitor the printing process, while TFL provides custom-developed coating chemistry. Alussa enables the leather industry to decorate high-quality leather in such a way that it exhibits the excellent performance required in terms of flexibility and scratch resistance. It is the first industrial inkjet printing solution outputting decorated leather that can handle up to 100,000 flexes. Productivity amounts up to an impressive 80 m² per hour.

Alussa can print both white and full-colour designs with photographic quality on diverse types of leather. As it is a digital printing solution, it is ideal for customizing and personalizing leather products, thus catering to a global trend. Also, it just as easily allows for the creation of one-offs (e.g. samples) as of large volumes.

“Printing images on leather using inkjet technology, and obtaining top performance in terms of flexibility and scratch resistance, is a complex challenge”, says Tom Cloots, Director Industrial Inkjet Agfa.

“We are very excited about the partnership between Agfa and TFL. Together we can create countless, customized fashion effects combined with high flexing and wearing properties to meet the rapidly changing demands of today’s fashion industry,” states Markus Hess, Global Head of Product Marketing TFL.

Agfa and TFL was presenting Alussa at the SIMAC TANNING TECH trade fair dedicated to the leather industry (Milan, February 19-21)