Up-to-date labelling gun inks are a nothing like the elementary solutions of the past. Using complex and modern chemical technology enables a greater number of applications for these simple tools than one might consider. What uses have driven this development?
There are many varied and suitable applications for the humble label gun. They can obviously be used for pricing items in the retail. Nevertheless, there are uses in business and production routines that make these inexpensive tools perfect for. Managed quality control is imperative in food preparation so label guns can be utilised to indicate sell by dates, production batch or technician or variety information.
The simple hand-held labelling gun produces a label that can be of advanced paper and adhesive, not only giving specific information but also ink. If a particular colour of ink is used, this can convey specific information such as week of the month of production or processing. Such information can be conveyed by using coloured paper and ink. Another characteristic of the ink is that it may be made temperature sensitive. Using a heat sensitive ink, it is possible to indicate that a certain temperature threshold has been met. This could show if food has been heated to the correct temperature for serving or if medical tools have been sterilised at the correct temperature.
For example, dental equipment is labelled before being exposed to the sterilizing autoclave. The label includes a date printed in ‘thermo-resistant’ ink to signal the day of sterilization and a date to signify the day the sterilization becomes expired, also in ‘heat immune’ ink. Thermo-chromatic ink that changes colour at the designated temperature is marked on the label in between the two dates. This shows that the desired heat has been reached.
Ink manufacturers that the likes of labelling and labelling gun suppliers like Positive ID use, can produce heat indicating inks that will indicate at virtually any temperature. This is obviously restricted to the tolerances of the label material and the label adhesive used but these too are items that can be subject to specific tolerances. central sterile processing technician
