6 - Recent developments in the preparatory processes for the digital printing of textiles

Abstract

A piece of fabric must be prepared well before dyeing or printing, known as the pretreatment process. The preparatory process of digital and conventional printing is different. The conventional printing paste is a thick material containing all the required chemicals; however, the final printing recipe has only the inks/dyes in digital printing, excluding any other auxiliary. One of the reasons for this is that the printing head could get choked due to the slight thickness of the paste, as in the case of conventional printing. Therefore, before digital printing, the fabric is padded with all the auxiliaries except the dyes. There have been many advancements in the preparatory processes for digital printing in recent years, which significantly affect the process cost, feasibility, quality, and efficiency. This chapter highlights recent advancements in the preparatory process for digital printing, including thickeners, binders, other auxiliaries, machine and process parameters, and their influence on printing quality.