Inkjet Printing For Fabrication Research Articles

Encapsulation of Pigment Red 122 into UV‐curable resins via a mini‐emulsion technique

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to encapsulate aqueous dispersions of nano‐scale CI Pigment Red 122 prepared through ball milling into UV‐curable resins, 1,6 hexanediol diacrylate (HDDA, monomer), and polyester acrylate (oligomer) using the mini‐emulsion technique.Design/methodology/approachThe encapsulation of pigment is achieved by mixing a surfactant‐stabilised pigment dispersions and a monomer/oligomer mini‐emulsions and subjecting both to mini‐emulsification conditions. A film of encapsulated pigment mini‐emulsion is finally UV cured using water‐soluble initiator. Efficient encapsulation is proven by ultra‐centrifugal sedimentation, scanning electron microscopy and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The stability of pigment dispersions and also the encapsulation process are investigated.FindingsTGA and ultracentrifuge sedimentation results showed that CI Pigment Red 122 is successfully encapsulated into polyester acrylate/HDDA resins. The oligomer (polyester acrylate) in the presence of organic pigment could stabilise the mini‐emulsion droplets without introducing any other hydrophobes (co‐stabiliser) in the formulation. In addition, the encapsulation percentage and suspension stability of mini‐emulsion are best when the polyester acrylate/HDDA weight ratio is 3:2.Research limitations/implicationsThe UV‐curable resins used in the present context are 1,6 HDDA and polyester acrylate. Besides, various oligomer/monomer composition types could be used and its impact on encapsulation efficiency could be also studied.Practical implicationsThis method of encapsulation is practically effective for modification of organic pigments for use in UV‐curable ink‐jet printing inks.Originality/valueThe developed method is novel from a literature point of view and can be of a great benefit to achieve the required properties of pigmented UV‐curable system in inkjet printing of textiles. In addition, it could find numerous applications in surface coating.

Digital Inkjet Dyeing and Printing of Textiles with Vat Dyes

Digital Inkjet Dyeing and Printing of Textiles with Vat Dyes

Preparation of polymer-encapsulated pigment for formulations of inkjet inks

In textile inkjet printing, pigment inks have become one of the main colorants because of its excellent light fastness and suitable to all sorts of fibers. Pigments are applied as aqueous dispersion due to their water insoluble. Encapsulation of pigments with polymer can protect them from agglomeration and unwanted environmental influences such as UV radiation or acid and alkali. The encapsulation leads to better storage stability, color stability and durability, and the film formation can be adjusted. In this paper, organic pigments (P.B.65, 73, 14, and 83) were encapsulated with polystyrene and polyacrylates via miniemulsion polymerization. The properties of pigment dispersions dispersed in water and monomers were evaluated. With ultrasonication time prolong, the particle size of pigment dispersions decreased. For 30 min ultrasonication, the particle size of P.Y. 14 and 83 dispersions in water was smaller than that of P.Y. 65 and 73. The particle size of pigment dispersion in styrene was smaller than that in acrylates. The stability of P.Y.83/monomer dispersion was the best. There was almost no separated monomer layer in P.Y.83 dispersions, but significant separated monomer layer can be seen in P.Y.65 dispersions. The encapsulation ratios and efficiency of P.Y.83 with polymers were larger than that of P.Y.65. Acrylates tend to adsorb better on the surface of pigment particles than methacrylates, while the encapsulation ratios of polyacrylates were higher.

Preparation of Waterborne Nanoscale Pigment Dispersions for Formulation of Ink Jet Inks

Textile ink jet printing as a new dyeing method with higher resolution, lower pollution, and shorter run length has attracted more and more people's attention. Pigment inks have become one of the main colorant materials in this technology for their excellent light fastness and their suitability to all sorts of textiles. However, most organic pigments of low polarity are hard to wet and disperse in aqueous media, therefore the organic pigments must be modified before their application. In this research, waterborne nanoscale pigment dispersion including Copper Phthalocyanine blue (P.B.15-.3), Quinacridone Red pigment (PR.122), and Monoazo Yellow pigment (P. Y. 14) have been prepared by the phase separation method and by the method of direct milling with dispersants, respectively. The properties (stability, particle size, and apparent viscosity) of dispersions prepared by the different methods were compared. The results show that the pigment dispersion has higher stability to alcohols, temperature, and storage, and also lower viscosity; the phase separation method was more suitable to preparation of pigment dispersion for formulations of ink jet inks than the method of direct milling with dispersants; TEM images indicated that the pigment particles were uniformly distributed in aqueous media, and the x-ray diffraction spectra indicated that the pigment crystal structure was unchanged after encapsulation in the phase separation method.

Color properties of disperse dye inks and pigment inks on polyester fabrics

Dye inks and pigment inks are two kinds of inks for digital inkjet printing of textiles. As commercial inks, dye inks are more widely used in digital printing of textiles. But dye inks are just suitable for specific fiber fabric, such as disperse dye inks are only suitable for inkjet printing of polyester fabrics and reactive dye inks just for protein and cellulose fibers. Frequent change of inks is not only tedious and time consuming, but also wastes inks. Pigment inks are suitable for inkjet printing of all kinds of fabrics, including polyester, silk, cotton, wool, et al. But pigment inks are not widely used in textile digital printing today because there are many problems not solved such as poor fastness and less brilliant colors. In this paper, the color properties of disperse dye inks and pigment inks were investigated and compared each other. Pure colors of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black, Light Cyan and Light Magenta were printed with disperse dye inks and pigment inks respectively on the same kind of polyester fabrics. The color properties such as K/S values and L*a*b* were measured. The corresponding ICC profiles were drawn respectively using the color data. Then color gamut of the two kinds of inks was calculated from the ICC profiles with RIP software. The differences of two inks printed fabrics were investigated and the reasons are analyzed. Although pigment inks exhibited poorer color property than disperse dye inks on polyester fabrics pigment inks could be used for digital inkjet printing of textiles.

The use of plasma pre-treatment for enhancing the performance of textile ink-jet printing

In this study the effect of low temperature plasma (LTP) treatment of cotton fabric for ink-jet printing was investigated. Owing to the specific printing and conductivity requirements for ink-jet printing, none of the conventional printing chemicals used for cotton fabric can be directly incorporated into the ink formulation. As a result, the cotton fabric requires treatment with the printing chemicals prior to the stage of ink-jet printing. The printing chemicals as a treatment to cotton fabric are applied by the coating method. The aim of this study was to investigate the possibility and effectiveness of applying LTP pre-treatment to enhance the performance of treatment paste containing sodium alginate, to improve the properties of the ink-jet printed cotton fabric. Experimental results revealed that the LTP pre-treatment in conjunction with the ink-jet printing technique could improve the final properties of printed cotton fabric.

Preparation and application of nanoscale microemulsion as binder for fabric inkjet printing

To obtain a nanoscale binder suitable for pigment-based inkjet ink printing on fabrics, a polymer microemulsion with a high content of soft monomer of butyl acrylate (BA) was synthesized via a modified microemulsion polymerization method, where N-methylolacrylamide (NMA) served as the cross-linking monomer and monododecyl maleate (MDM) as the copolymerizable surfactant. The effects of the functional monomers (NMA, MDM), the weight ratios of monomers, and the solid contents on the microemulsion properties were investigated by TEM, DSC, particle size analyzing, and fabric inkjet printing. The results indicated that the microemulsion had a number-average particle diameter less than 50 nm and with narrow particle size distribution. It was also found that the glass transition temperatures ( T g) of the film formed from the microemulsion could be lower than −30 °C. Fabric inkjet printing application of the pigment-based inks formulated with the as-considered optimum microemulsion as a binder and commercial pigment dispersions demonstrated excellent printability of the inks, and good colour fastnesses and softness of the printed fabrics.

Cotton Fabric Inkjet Printing with Acid Dyes

Cotton fabric inkjet printing with acid dyes is investigated using quaternary ammonium (choline chloride (cc)) and two crosslinking agents (DMDHEU and BTCA) to examine dye uptake. The concentrations of chemicals, the finishing conditions, and the inkjet printing processes are explored. With the aid of crosslinkers, acid inks can be used satisfactorily on cotton. Adding CC to the crosslinkers improves acid dye uptake only slightly more than using the crosslinking agent alone. A disadvantage of cc is that the loose dye stains onto white unprinted areas during laundering. The main function of crosslinkers is not only to chemically link the dye to cellulose, but also to form a crosslinked network to block the entrance of the fiber pores where dye molecules have previously penetrated.

Textile Ink Jet Printing with Low Viscosity Pigment Inks

The development of textile pigment ink solutions is a very complex area were currently available systems have been tailored to individual ink jet print head technologies.The present paper will outline developments in the area of novel polymer dispersing agents for pigment inks, which allows the production of textile pigment inks with low viscosity profiles suitable for piezo print heads.These new textile pigment ink jet inks produce ink jet prints, which are comparable to traditional textile pigment screen prints.

Developments in Textile Ink Jet Printing with Pigment Inks

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.

Textile Printing: A Challenge for Ink Jet Printing Technology

For a few years, aside from the printing of carpets and banners, ink jet technology has been used successfully for printing textiles. Compared with the traditional textile printing process, the market share using ink jet technology is not yet very important. However, a market study predicts a very strong growth within the next few years.What are the requirements that ink jet technology has to fulfill?The paper will describe the main demands and differences between the known ink jet print - mainly on papers and foils - and the textile print.Different fibers and applications of a textile print automatically demand different pretreatment and aftertreatment processes, and the use of special chemicals and dyes as well.Because of this complexity we can not expect one solution for the textile ink jet printing process.This will be the challenge for textile ink jet printing.The faster the solutions become available, the more quickly the predicted market growth will be reached.

High Color Performance in Industrial Application of Textile Ink Jet Printing

Since ink jet printing on textile is currently limited in sampling and small lot production with far slower speed (2m2/min) than conventional textile printing (50 m2/min) in average, screen printing will be applied for “large lot” production in the industry before the complete domination by the digital process. The colors presented with dots by digital ink-jet machines should be made equivalent to those with blocks by conventional textile printers. The color matching between the sampling and the industrial production can be achieved by mixing colors for ink elements to make the color difference (ΔE) < 1. The technology of mixing colors in this article involved the ink formulation which imparted the stability and compatibility of colorants, and the color management on customer demand. With the arising appeal for the cleaner production process, advanced pretreatment with no wash-off step on fabrics were investigated with the application of hydrophilic copolymers to present better ink-textile interactive performance (sharpness, color yield, etc.) and good durability. With the benefit of modified color system and effective fabric treatment will promise the quick response manufacturing linked to near-future innovation, e.g., bodyscanning, CAD tailoring, and internet ordering workshop.

Coloration Systems for Ink Jet Printing of Textiles

Little detailed information has been published on ink formulations for ink jet printing on textile substrates. Requirements for coloration systems for textile printing will be reviewed and approaches for achieving the desired characteristics will be suggested. Coloration systems based on polymerizable resins with solvent dyes, two phase inks with pigments and inks based on polymerizable dyes will be described. Sample coupons employing these experimental systems were prepared on a TOXOT continuous ink jet printer and properties of these experimental systems on textile substrates will be reported (fastness properties, bending rigidity, etc.)