The remanufacturing of industral printheads used point of purchase and point of sale retail, and, in packaging and labelling is the most environmentally friendly and efficient method of supplying demand for these parts and an estimate of CO2 saving by remanufacturing and testing these printheads is 5 kg per remanufactured printhead. Market has shown that commercial printing globally has been severely impacted by COVID-19 with many print shops stopping production completely. However, packaging and label printing has seen an increase in production above normal demand. So corrugated packaging, labels, cartons and flexible packaging volumes have increased. Online retail has increased, increasing print volumes, more single use packaging used for hygiene. Reshoring is taking place. All these growing printing markets use industrial inkjet printheads that periodically require replacement when they stop performing, or a remanufactured, tested and returned to production. Camscience have decided to pivot the business and entirely refocus on the needs of the industrial inkjet packaging and labelling industry. As part of our market research beginning May 2020 we reached out to the packaging and labelling industry and as a result of this learnt that the industry wanted a cost effective remanufacturing and test solution that was compact (that could sit on the back seat of a car), and did not take up valuable manufacturing space, was light-weight so could be carried by operators who were not physically strong (females, smaller stature operatives). As a result of this research Camscience have developed the PREFINAS system Prefinas - Printhead Refurbishment Factory in a Suitcase is an integrated system comprising an industrial printhead cleaning technology (equipment, processes and chemistries) and a printhead testing system comprising a miniaturised industrial printing, whose printing ink is also an adaption of the cleaning fluid so that printhead flushing between cleaning and printing cycles is eliminated. The Prefinas system is designed to fit in the luggage compartment, or back seat of a car, light in weight so that it can be carried and moved without the need for substantial strength. It is also cost effective, and an entire factory in a suitcase can be purchased for the price or refurbishing 15 printheads.

Camscience have developed a novel remanufacturing process for industrial printhead that enables them to be re-used in printing production indefinitely. Such heads have unit cost of between £2000 and £10,000 and are a key component in all forms of industrial printing, including publishing, 3D printing, wide format printing of textiles ceramics and wall coverings. Digital printing continues to be a major technological growth area. Currently the Camscience process in manual, and requires some skill to operate it successfully My vision for the APRET project is to fully automate the remanufacturing process so that it is delivered at the touch of a button, and after remanufacturing perform print head quality testing and printing to validate the success of the operation returning a printhead to equivalent to new condition. It is expected that Camscience will seek funding at the completion of this project to allow international growth of this technology in global markets.

The project involves the industrial development of a novel cleaning process and materials for the remanufacturing of products with complex internal geometries. The technology applies a combination of energy sources to deconstitute contamination in a product, to restore the product's critical surfaces to a condition equivalent to new, or better than new condition. Products suitable to be treated with this process include industrial printheads (value £1,500 - £6,000) used in large printing presses with hundreds of printheads , consumer inkjet cartridges, consumer and business desktop printers and automotive diesel particulate filters. The process so developed will be environmentally green, with minimal waste materials produced.

The printing industry has seen a transformation during the past twenty years, with printing moving from analogue offset lithographic and screen printing, to all-digital printing presses. Digital printing has allowed for great efficiencies in the printing process, with shorter set up times and fast turnaround on print jobs. Printing presses use hundreds of high value printheads, which overtime develop blocked nozzles, rendering them unusable. However, unblocking printheads is achievable using the correct processes and printheads can be returned to their machine and continue to deliver excellent performance. This feasibility study is to determine the business case for creating a printhead remanufacturing operation that can create a circular economy in the printing industry and prevent high value durable goods being prematurely scrapped.