Preparation and properties of alcohol‐resistant thermal transfer printing inks for multifunctional label printing via physical blending of resins

Abstract

AbstractDue to the rise of the logistics industry and the widespread use of ink labels, problems such as the narrow operating temperature range of ink, poor alcohol resistance, and insufficient scratch resistance need to be solved urgently. In this work, creates alcohol‐resistant thermal transfer inks by mixing polypropylene chloride (VP‐365) and epoxidized hydrogenated bisphenol A (P) resin and incorporating them into the ink formulation. The synthetic ink has a lower glass transition temperature (118.2°C), allowing the ink to print at lower temperatures. It has small wetting angles (68°, 63°, 58°, 46°, and 40°) and a large adhesion force (10.44 – 14.4 N) for different labels. Further, to evaluate the printing performance of the ink, the ink was scratched under 1000 g pressure and in the environment of isopropyl alcohol to evaluate its printing performance. The produced ink has high scratch resistance (300 times) and good alcohol resistance (140 times). Moreover, the developed ink showed good printability, printing media versatility, high adhesion, and excellent alcohol resistance. The synthesis method is facile and cost‐effective, which paves a novel way towards high‐performance ink printing and thermal transfer technology industries.