How Coating Helps Paper?

Every single day you come across at least one paper product that is used for paper craft, art, office supplies, packaging or utilities. It's highly likely that at times you may not even know that you are really using paper for your coffee cup or insulating material in construction. There are fewer materials, just as ubiquitous and versatile, as paper.

After having used paper for many years strictly for education and art, paper has made its way into some of unimaginable utilities as well. Even for the many purposes where paper may seem to be too weak or fragile to handle certain tasks, there are ways to improve on the same.

At ThunderBolt paper, we understand the many ways we can improve on regular paper and it's qualities by adding appropriate materials during the manufacturing process. One of these process that can bring about profound changes in the properties of paper is coating. Here is what you need to know about coating by discussing how it affects the paper as follows.

For longevity

Most kinds of paper that you may know of or may have used is essentially biodegradable material, which means it decomposes fairly quickly as compared to many other materials. So one of the foremost reasons to improve on paper and its longevity lead people to find acid free paper or archival grade paper.

In order to make acid free paper, the paper goes through a process of  removing lignin from the wood pulp to stop the paper from becoming acidic over time.  An additional coating of calcium or magnesium bicarbonate is used to neutralize any chance formation of acids on the paper.

So in this case, coating helps us to elongate paper's life. Acid free archival grade paper is ideal for storing your favorite memories, art or important documents just as new, for as long as you want.

For improving tear resistance

One of the most common paper products that you see while shopping is Kraft paper, easily recognizable as brown color shopping bags. Kraft paper is usually used for packaging anything between grocery to delicate materials such as glass while transportation.

Kraft paper is made of thick fibrous recycled paper treated with a sulfate infused pulping process, which allows it to contain the enormous amount of strength that it holds. Another coating of resin is also provided to improve on grease or moisture resisting properties.

Coated Kraft paper, because of its exceptional grease resistant, tear resistant and lightweight properties is not only common with the packaging industry but also a favorite among the eco-friendly paper product enthusiasts using it for anything between making paper bags to a lot of paper craft.

Grease resistance

Another commonly visible and widely used paper product is probably parchment paper because of its unique translucent appearance and moisture or grease resistant features. For that matter, vellum paper which is a kind of parchment paper looks and feels so much like the ancient lamb skin parchment paper that you may even confuse it for a plastic sheet.

You can use the same kind of parchment paper for tracing prints off of paper to t-shirts at home with your printer, as well as use it to line your baking tray before laying out some cookies. This grease resistant and even heat-resistant property of parchment paper comes only from a unique silica coating.

Improve strength

When you are looking forward to printing a batch of brochures for your business or some customized business cards, you would be looking for a paper that is not only thick but also stand against rigorous usage.

By using coated cardstock you can achieve not only bright contrasting colors perfectly along with sharp images for your prints but also ensure these brochures or business cards last a long time.

This kind of coating is possible with a thin film of plastic covering the cardstock. You can also find one side or double-sided coated cardstock to suit your specific needs.

We encourage you to explore your paper or specifically coated paper options each time you have a new paper based project to work with, so as to know what are their features and how they can benefit you. We would love to hear your opinions or experience is with coated paper or any of our products in comments below or any of our social media handles. Have you tried coated paper?