Developments in Textile Ink Jet Printing with Pigment Inks

Abstract

The analogue textile printing industry is dominated by pigment printing. One of the major reasons for such a high market share (∼ 50 % of the textile printing market) is the on-going technology developments in the key component of the pigment printing system, the polymer textile “binder”. The latest textile binders are complex polymer mixtures which have been developed to impart the color fastness, durability and importantly, a soft “handle” to the textile, that the final end user customer demands.Initial developments in digital textile ink jet printing focused primarily on the development of water soluble textile inks, such as reactive and acids dyes, as dye purification and micro filtration technology was available at the colorant manufacturers. However, as textile ink jet technology develops with increased quality, production rates and new business models, the textile printing industry will require the development of textile pigment printing ink jet inks which “mirror” the conventional textile pigments/binders in technology performance.The development of textile pigment ink solutions is very much more complex than water soluble dye systems and must be tailored to individual ink jet print head technologies. The present paper will outline developments in textile pigment ink jet printing and indicate how total textile pigment ink systems will have to be developed in the future for specific print head families.