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Digital ink-jet printing was developed more than two decades ago, to print image directly from the computer on substrates such as paper, film and plastic, etc. In the past decade, digital ink-jet printing has been extensively used in textile applications also due to improvement of ink, software and machinery. Therefore, a comprehensive review of digital ink-jet printing on textiles was conducted. The technical aspects of digital ink-jet printing are addressed and hardware requirements of digital ink-jet printing system for textiles are also reviewed. Specific criteria of ink and substrate for digital ink-jet printing are discussed. On the other hand, problems of printing quality because of textile substrate are also discussed in this paper.

This paper will review digital ink‐jet printing on textiles and the advantages it offers to textile industry and consumers in comparison with conventional printing. The paper also reports on some of the results of a large project, which has been undertaken in the University of Leeds to address a number of issues concerning the problems associated with this technique. One of the important issues associated with digital ink‐jet printing on textiles is speed and reliability, as this has commercial implications for the industry. The research carried out in Leeds has addressed this problem and solutions are proposed which will be covered in detail in this paper. Further research has also been carried out to establish the issues surrounding digital ink‐jet printing and print quality when different types of designs are being printed. The paper will address the results of this research on quality assessment of digital ink‐jet printing on textiles.

Recent years have seen a rapid development of ink‐jet printing technology. This paper reviews the state‐of‐the‐art in ink‐jet printing technology and gives an overview of ink‐jet printing into the immediate future. The focus is placed on various applications of jet printing technology. The potential of applying jetting technology in the conventionally surface coating dominated applications will also be explored.

This paper aims to study the effect of the new modified dispersing agent, milling time of the properties and particle size distribution (PSD) of inkjet ink formulation for polyester fabric printing.

The study’s methods include preparation of different formulations of textile inkjet inks based on different types of dispersing agents, then applying and evaluating the prepared formulations on the polyester fabric. The properties of the prepared ink formulations were analyzed by measuring viscosity, surface tension and particle size. The current work is including the study of the effect of using different doses of different dispersing agents and the milling time on their characteristics. Also, the study was extended to evaluate the printed polyester by using the prepared inks according to light fastness, washing fastness, alkali perspiration fastness and crock fastness.

The results showed that the used dispersing agents and the different milling time enhanced the viscosity and dynamic surface tension in the accepted range, but it was largely cleared in the PSD which tends to perform the inks on the printhead and prevent clogging of nozzles. Light fastness, washing fastness, alkali perspiration fastness and crock fastness gave good results in agreement with this type of inkjet inks for textile printing.

In this work, good results were obtained with this type of dispersing agent for inkjet ink formulations, but for other dispersing agents, other tests could be performed. The inkjet ink could also be formulated with other additives to prevent clogging of nozzles on the printhead.

These ink formulations could be used for printing on polyester fabric by the inkjet printing.

Recently, there was a considerable interest in the study of the effect of PSD on the inkjet inks to prevent clogging of nozzles on the printhead and to improve the print quality on the textile fiber.

The research aims to examine the varying influence of printed inkjet ink on the warm/cool feeling and air permeability of printed textile materials and thus on the thermal properties of printed garments.

The influence of different number of printing pass and different tone value (TV) coverage was examined. The tested samples were printed with water-based pigment inkjet inks with 10, 50 and 100% TVs with one, three and five printing passes. The tested samples were subjected to thermal characteristics testing by measuring the warm/cool feeling and air permeability before and after printing.

The research results showed that there is an increase in the value of the warm/cool feeling by increasing the amount of applied ink on the textile material, which occurs by increasing the TVs and the number of printing pass. At the same time values of air permeability decrease by increasing the number of printing pass, as well as by increasing TVs.

Based on the results, mathematical models of the dependence of the warm/cool feeling value of printed textile materials on the air permeability and parameters of digital inkjet printing were created. These models are important in clothing design because they show in advance the values of the warm/cool feeling of the clothes being designed and thus enable the design of clothes for different purposes with optimal esthetic and thermal properties.

Pretreatment of fabric with a number of chemicals and auxiliaries is a prerequisite for inkjet printing. Owing to the rapidly increasing use of inkjet printing for textile fabrics, the study of the effects of process variables on various characteristics of the resulting print has drawn considerable interest recently. The purpose of this paper is to study the effects of different variables associated with the inkjet printing process on the quality of the resulting print. Specifically, the effects of chemicals and auxiliaries used in the pretreatment of the fabric prior to printing and factors such as steaming time were studies.

In the present study, which forms a part of a larger study by the authors, the influence of the nature of thickener, the amounts of thickener, urea and alkali, pH of the pretreatment liquor and the duration of steaming on ink penetration into the printed fabrics and the ink spreading across the fabrics was studied. The nature of ink penetration and ink spreading are known to have pronounced effects on the quality and, in turn, the overall appearance of the resulting print. A set of experiments based on a blocked 2^5–1 fractional factorial design with four centre points were conducted to evaluate the role of the aforementioned five variables. Ink penetration was quantified on the basis of the principles of Kebulka-Munk theory while ink spreading was analysed by image analysis.

Detailed statistical analyses of the experimental data obtained show that different thickeners perform differently and can have a marked influence on ink penetration and ink spreading. In the case of polyacrylic acid-based thickener, changing the levels of the factors has a marked effect on ink penetration and in-turn on ink spreading. In the case of polyacrylamide (PAM)-based thickener, on the other hand, the effect of changing the levels of various factors on the ink penetration and ink spreading is considerably less pronounced. In addition, PAM treated samples exhibited better performance in terms of ink penetration and spreading.

This study provides useful information for textile printers and highlights the importance of selecting the right type of thickener to make the printing process and the quality of the resulting print more predictable and controllable.

The purpose of this paper is to prepare and characterise various ink formulations for inkjet printing on nylon 66 carpet.

Various ink formulations were prepared using CI Acid Red 57, synthetic thickeners (BYK425 and BYK420), ethylene glycol, diethylene glycol, isopropanol with auxiliaries. The inks were characterised for their rheological, wetting and storage stability properties. The inks were jetted using a Printos P16 drop‐on‐demand jet print‐head onto nylon 66 carpet materials. The printed images were characterised using an ImageXpert system.

It is found that the inks containing the synthetic thickeners at the optimum ratio give good printing and image properties, such as optical density, drop size, and depth of penetration into the substrate at pH 4‐5. The optimised ink formulation is found to have good storage stability.

The study focuses on ink formulations based on CI Acid Red 57. Ink formulations based on other colorants could also be studied in order to assess the applicability of the ink formulation system found for other colorants.

The ink formulations developed could find use in industrial scale printing.

Low cost ink formulations for printing of nylon carpets are novel.

The purpose of this paper is to prepare ultra-violet (UV)-curable inkjet inks for textile printing application. The influence of both type and component ratio of monomer/oligomer on the quality of the desired viscosity range is studied. Moreover, the effect of pigment/resin ratio on the rheological behaviour of the ink has been studied.

Aqueous dispersions of nanoscale organic pigments were prepared through ball milling and ultrasonication. The dispersed pigments were encapsulated into UV-curable resin via miniemulsion technique, using different types and component ratios of monomers and oligomers.

It was found that the monomer/oligomer ratio of 2:3 and the pigment/resin ratio of 2:1 gave the most stable miniemulsion dispersions and provided the most suitable rheological range for inkjet printing inks.

As the rheology of the ink is optimised, most of the problems associated with the jetting process could be avoided.

This method of using UV-curable encapsulated inks eliminates the usage of binders, which are the principal factor for nozzle clogging of the print head. In addition, binders are responsible for the coarse handle of the printed textiles.

The UV-curable inks were viewed as a green technology by the US Environmental Protection Agency.

This method is simple and fast and requires low cost. In addition, it could find numerous applications in surface coating.

This paper aims to analyse the let-down stability of the binder-free dispersion of non-printing ink grades of carbon black and to assess the screen-printability of the finished inks formulated thereof from these pigment dispersions.

Binder-free pigment dispersions that were prepared and optimised following a ladder series of experiments (reported in a separate study by the authors) were let-down with three different binders such that inks containing various amounts of a binder were prepared followed by a rheological characterisation immediately after formulation and after four weeks of storage. The screen printability of the inks that displayed considerable stability was assessed, so was the ink film integrity.

The pigment dispersions that were considered in the present study were generally found to be stable after let-down with different binders. This was indicated by the fact that the finished inks possessed a shear thinning viscosity profiles, after formulation and after storage, in most of the cases. Furthermore, the screen printability of the inks was also found to be good in terms of registration quality of a selected design. The structure of the ink film deposits on uncoated and binder-coated textile fabrics was also highly integrated and free from discontinuities.

Carbon blacks with very low volatile matter content and/or high surface area are generally not considered suitable for use in the formulation of printing inks. This is because of their generally poor dispersability and inability to form dispersions that remain stable over extended periods. This work, which is a part of a larger study by the authors, concerns with the stability of inks formulated from binder-free dispersions of such non-printing ink grades of carbon black. The major advantage of using such pigments in inks is that the required functionality is achieved at considerably low pigment loadings.