UV-Curable Pretreatments for Digital Printing Textile Substrates

Abstract

Textile substrates for digital printing requires pre- and post-treatments to minimize problems such as ink bleeding and poor wet, light and smear fastnesses, which are mainly associated with the porous nature of textile substrates and the dyes and inks used. We investigated the pretreatments for cotton print fabrics using β-cyclodextrin dispersed in UV-curable acrylic emulsion to improve the digital print quality. The woven and knit cotton fabrics were pretreated by spraying with two recipes containing different amounts of β-cyclodextrin, polyethylene glycol diacrylate (a UV-curable resin), and 2-hydroxy-2-methyl-1-phenyl propanone (a photo initiator). The curing of the resin on treated fabrics was achieved with different dosage of UV radiation. HP DeskJet 820CSE printer was used for printing a test pattern on the treated cotton fabrics. The print quality such as line width and color variation was determined with Personal IAS System™ supplied by the QEA (Burlington, MA). It was found that the best print quality, which is comparable to photographic paper used as control, can be achieved with 10% β-cyclodextrin and 90% resin cured at 6 m/min under UV intensity of 118 W/cm. The coated fabrics showed a harsh hand and were somewhat stiff, which is undesirable in applications requiring drape and suppleness.