Textile production has been transformed in the last 10 years by the introduction of industrial digital printing based on inkjet technology. Tim Phillips reviews the factors that have enabled this transformation.
The digital revolution in textile printing – requirements and trends for inkjet inks and textile chemistry
Recently, the pigment ink market for textile inkjet printing is emerging rapidly. Pigment inks have a lot of benefits such as a high colour strength and high light resistance. They are considered as “universal inks” because they can be applied directly on a large range of textile substrates without sophisticated or environmentally unfriendly pre- or post-treatments. Dr Enrico Sowade of Zschimmer and Schwarz discusses the impact of pre-treatment on ink performance.
Software licensing and impact on print costs
Evaluating onshore and offshore sourcing for textile printing
Digital Textiles: Open and closed ink models – risk and reward
Development of aqueous pigmented inkjet inks for industrial applications
With inkjet printing rapidly proving itself as a true production process within the area of industrial printing, we as inkjet ink developers need to keep up with the pace and develop new fluids for these applications. Aqueous inks for industrial inkjet printing are potentially advantageous for many different applications. However, delivering the right functionality in a formulation with the constraints imposed by inkjet printing is no easy task.
