From the prior art, a number of devices and methods are known for providing the surfaces of plate-shaped elements—herein referred to as plates or panels—with a décor. The provision of plates with décors is widespread, especially in the furniture industry and the manufacturing of flooring. For example, so-called laminate panels are known for floors, which are relatively inexpensive to manufacture and easy to work with. They are usually based on a carrier plate of a wood-based material, such as MDF or HDF, on which surface an imprinted décor paper impregnated with a resin has been applied. Over the décor paper, a so-called overlay paper is usually also applied, in order to improve the durability of the upper layer. The used papers are impregnated with resins, such as for example amino resins, which cure by compression under the influence of heat and pressure. In order to enhance the abrasion resistance of the surfaces the resins are also often provided with abrasion resistant particles, such as in particular corundum.
In a further development of such laminate panels so-called direct-imprinted panels have been developed. With these direct-imprinted panels, no papers are usually applied any longer, in particular no décor paper. The décor layer is printed rather by using emulsion paints by means of gravure printing directly on the surface of the panels or the plate. For this purpose, the surface is properly pretreated, in particular ground and provided with a proper primer, which is applied via rolls. After imprinting and drying of the décor layer, several polymer layers (based e.g. on polymerizable acrylate systems) are subsequently applied and cured. The resin layers serve as a protective layer and abrasion resistant surface, whereby also abrasion resistant particles are commonly embedded within.
From the WO 2008/061791 A1 of the same applicant, which content is hereby fully incorporated by reference, an improvement of the above mentioned polymer layers is known. The core of the improvement is that two different liquid polymer layers are applied wet on wet over one another on the surface of a panel, such that a partial mixing of the coating agent takes place at the interface. The two layers applied wet on wet are then cured jointly, whereby the resulting cured layer has a hardness gradient due to the partial mixing, whereby the hardness of the coating decreases with increasing depth as seen from the surface of the resulting coating.
From the DE 10 2004 009 160 B4 a method for manufacturing a floor panel is known, where an undercoating is applied on the surface of a plate by roll-coating, and subsequently thereon a primer also by roll-coating. Then the décor is imprinted thereon and subsequently a highly abrasion resistant as well as scratch resistant lacquer layer is applied. This document thus shows a typical method of the prior art.
From WO 2011/020755 A1 an improved method is known whereby a decorative pattern is applied by means of digital printing after rolling on a primer on the surface of a plate and drying the primer.
Although in particular the above mentioned WO 2008/061791 represents a significant advance in the prior art, there is still a need for improvement. It is therefore the object of the present invention to improve the known prior art and in particular to provide an imprinted panel, which has a particularly high quality print image, as well as a method for providing such an improved print image. In a further aspect, it is the object to provide a plate as well as a method, in which the adhesion of the various layers is increased, and therefore has particularly good values as to mechanical resistance.
These and other objects, which will be referred to more precisely when reading the following description, or may be recognized by the person skilled in the art, are achieved by a panel according to claim 1 and a method according to claim 4.