An inkjet receptive coating is the layer that decides whether an aqueous inkjet label looks sharp or muddy. It has to swallow the water in the ink within milliseconds, keep the pigment on the surface, and still survive die cutting, rewinding and a year on a shelf.
Model guide · last verified 2026-10-21 · published in English · technical questions: contact the lab
Aqueous inkjet ink is mostly water. At production speed a page-wide head lays down a lot of it, very quickly, and the receiver has a few milliseconds to deal with it. A receptive coating works in one of two ways: it is microporous, so water is pulled into voids by capillary action and the pigment is left fixed at the surface, or it is swellable, so a polymer absorbs water and swells around the pigment.
On a paper facestock the base sheet already absorbs some water, which is why paper labels print acceptably on uncoated machines and film labels do not. On BOPP or PET, with no bulk absorption at all, the coating is the only thing standing between a sharp barcode and a puddle.
Four properties decide whether the result is sellable: how fast the coating takes water, how much ink it can hold before it saturates, how well it stays bonded to the facestock, and how it behaves in a humid warehouse after printing.
Most specification mistakes we see come from treating "inkjet" as one thing. It is not, and the coating requirement is close to opposite between the two main families.
| Print process | What the ink does | What the material must provide | Our family |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aqueous inkjet (Memjet, water-based page-wide) | Water carrier must be removed fast; pigment must stay on the surface | A receptive coating with enough capacity and a fast take-up rate | Memjet |
| UV-curable inkjet | Ink stays liquid until UV cure; nothing has to be absorbed | Wetting, adhesion after cure, and no inhibition of the cure | UV Inkjet |
| Laser toner (LED / laser printer) | Toner is fused by heat and pressure | Smooth, heat-stable surface; no receptive layer needed | Laserjet |
| HP Indigo (liquid toner) | Electrostatic transfer of liquid toner, then fusing | Release behaviour of the blanket and heat resistance | Indigo |
Facestock, adhesive and liner below are taken directly from the technical data sheet of each code. If you are unsure which family your press falls into, tell us the print engine model and we will match it.
| Code | Family | Facestock | Adhesive | Liner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MJ0101W21 | Memjet | 100 gsm high-glossy cast coated paper | Hot-melt | 80 gsm glassine |
| MJ0401W21 | Memjet | 75 mic glossy white PET film | Water-based permanent acrylic | 80 gsm glassine |
| MJ0501W21 | Memjet | 100 mic clear PET film | Water-based permanent acrylic | 80 gsm glassine |
| MJ0801W21 | Memjet | 36 mic pearl white BOPP film | Solvent acrylic | 80 gsm glassine |
| UV0101W21 | UV inkjet | 140 gsm semi-glossy cast coated paper | 23 ± 3 mic | 60 gsm white glassine |
| UV0201W21 | UV inkjet | 36 mic glossy white BOPP film | 21 ± 3 mic (ISO 2808) | 60 gsm white glassine |
| UV0301W21 | UV inkjet | 36 mic matte white BOPP film | 21 ± 3 mic (ISO 2808) | 60 gsm white glassine |
| LJ0101W21 | Laserjet | 140 gsm semi-glossy cast coated paper | Water-based | 95 gsm white liner |
| LJ0401W21 | Laserjet | 25 mic glossy white PET film | Water-based | 135 gsm white liner |
Choose by print engine first, then by what the label has to survive. The two questions are independent — a freezer label and a cosmetics label can both be Memjet jobs.
| If this is your situation | Start with | Because |
|---|---|---|
| Memjet or other water-based page-wide head, paper label | MJ0101W21 — 100 gsm gloss photo paper | Cast-coated base with a receptive surface; hot-melt adhesive for general containers |
| Same head, waterproof film label | MJ0401W21 — 75 mic gloss white PET | PET gives waterproof durability; the water-based acrylic keeps the coating bond stable |
| Clear film, no-label look, aqueous inkjet | MJ0501W21 — 100 mic clear PET | Thicker clear film holds the print without curl; check white-ink underlay on press |
| UV-curable inkjet, paper label | UV0101W21 — 140 gsm semi-glossy paper | No absorption needed; the level cast coat keeps the ink film even |
| UV-curable inkjet, film label | UV0201W21 — 36 mic gloss white BOPP | Wetting and cure response on BOPP, with a 60 gsm glassine liner for standard die cutting |
| Laser or LED printer, short runs | LJ0101W21 or LJ0401W21 | Toner fusing needs heat stability and a smooth surface, not a receptive layer |
Almost every "the material prints badly" call we take turns out to be one of these four, and three of them are solvable without changing supplier.
Symptom: solid areas look wet, patchy or metallic; drying is incomplete at speed. Cause: the receptive layer is saturated — the press is laying down more ink per unit area than the coating can take up. Fix: reduce ink limit in the RIP, raise dryer temperature, or move to a construction with a heavier receptive layer. On film, paper-like absorption is not available to help you.
Symptom: a barcode that verifies on paper fails on film, or drifts within a run. Cause: the ink spreads in the coating before it fixes, so bar width grows. The more absorbent the coating, the wider the dot gain. Fix: check the actual dot gain on your press with the candidate material, and do not assume two receptive films behave the same.
Symptom: printed rolls cannot be unwound cleanly, or print transfers to the liner. Cause: coating and ink are still plasticised when the web is rewound, usually in a humid warehouse. Fix: verify dryness at the rewinder rather than at the delivery end, reduce rewind tension, and store printed rolls in a controlled humidity.
Symptom: a thin white halo lifts at the cut line, or the print flakes when the label is peeled. Cause: the coating-to-facestock bond is weaker than the adhesive pull, often after ageing. Fix: this is a construction problem, not a press setting — move to a grade where the coating is anchored on a primed film, and ask for the TDS values rather than testing by eye.
We do not publish a "receptive coating weight" number as a selling point, because a single figure tells you almost nothing without the test method, the ink load and the speed. What we publish is the measured construction data on the TDS, and what we do is send matched samples so you can measure dot gain, barcode grade and blocking on your own press.
If a construction in the table above is not the right one for your job, we will say so. Sending a customer a film that cannot take their ink load costs us a year of credibility to save a week of selling.
Answered by the coating and conversion team, not by marketing.
If the printed labels are finished on a laser, the liner and the film choice decide the kerf quality.
The liner sits under the printed facestock in every construction here — 54, 60 and 80 gsm compared.
47 data sheets across HP Indigo, Memjet and laser/LED, with measured values per construction.
How the 1080 mm line runs at 180 m/min, and the five batch tests behind every TDS value.
Send your print engine model and a test file; we will send the constructions that fit it.