DIGITAL PRINTING IN TEXTILES

Prepared by
Voore abhilash(17110077)
Hritik kabra(17110024)
Jeetu(17110028)

Presented to:
Lalit Jajpura sir
Introduction
Textile industry has taken a big leap in the digital printing sector. One of the most promising
developments in the textile industry is digital fabric printing. It has opened the doors for numerous
prospects to enhance the quality and maintain the growing demands of textile printing. Anything can
be printed with ease and perfection on fabric using digital printing technology.

In simple words, when digital images are reproduced on physical surface, it is called digital printing.
The physical surface can be in forms like paper, cloth, plastic, film, etc. In digital textile printing,
once the design is created, it can be directly printed on the fabric from the computer. This process
does not require any other step. Just as an image is printed on the paper easily, one can print designs
on fabric.

To print the designs on the fabric digitally, a dye-sublimation printer is used, which carries out the
printing process by using heat to transfer design onto the fabric. In digital printing, it is necessary to
pre-treat the fabric. This will ensure that the fabric holds the ink well, and a variety of colors can be
attained through the pre-treatment process.

Digital textile printing is considered to be the 'next generation' printing which is quite different from
the conventional fabric printing. With fabric printing going digital, many textile entrepreneurs are
coming forward to invest in digital printing technology, as it is the most budding method of printing.
In India, the textile industry is embracing digital printing technology by printing novel designs on
saris and dress materials to meet the demands of domestic and international markets.

The textile industry in India has advanced tremendously in last ten years. According to the industry
sources, digital printing in India caters to 1% of the global demand of printed textiles. However, in the
coming five years this share is going to increase to 10%.With digital printing gaining huge popularity
and technological improvements that have taken place in ink, consumables, print heads and printing
machinery, the global production of printed textiles is estimated to reach 32 billion square meters by
2015, according to a global report released in U.S.According to the fashion gurus, 2013 will see
digital prints ruling the fashion arena. The past trends will be revived, with digital prints enhancing it
further. This year will demonstrate variety of abstract digital prints that will uplift the overall look of
the garment with its colors and designs. The fashion weeks that were recently held in Paris, Milan,
London and other cities have showcased this trend.

Digital prints are for people who like to experiment with bold and innovative designs. The leaders of
digital fabric printing like Alexander McQueen, Mary Katrantzou and Erdem Moralioglu have
displayed a range of digital prints, varying from abstract prints to graphic paintings, which will
stimulate one's artistic senses. Digital prints have become the hottest pick in the fashion world today.

The dyes used for digital textile printing are different from the dyes used in traditional printing. The
most popular dyes for digital printing are acid dye, reactive dye and disperse dye. These dyes can be
used for all commercial applications, and have properties like bright colors, low to medium salt
content and high color fastness.

Various dyes are used depending on the fabric for digital printing, like acid inks are used on silk and
nylon; disperse inks on polyesters and reactive inks are used on all cellulose based fabrics such as
cotton, linen and rayon. Moreover, these dyes are compatible with low cost ink systems.

Advantages of Digital Textile Printing

The digital textile printing has many advantages compared to the conventional printing method. The
best aspect of digital printing technology is that there is no limitation on the usage of colors or repeat
size. Multiple color shades can be printed on the fabric at a time, which is not as the case of traditional
printing techniques. The digital textile printing (DTP) system can supposedly produce 16 million
colors and shades. Hence, the process is time saving and cost effective.

Digital printing has proved to be advantageous for designers, textile companies and retailers. It allows
the user to print quickly and as little as required, and with high rate of accuracy. While in the case of
traditional printing, a minimum quantity has to be printed. Thus the overall cost of producing a
sample is considerably reduced. It does not even require color registration of plates or screens.

PROCESS FOR DIGITAL PRINTING

 Before going to digital printing all fabric need to coated with chemicals and prepared for
digital printing.
 During the printing process, the fabric is fed through the printer using feed roller and ink is
applied to surface of fabric in the form of thousand tiny droplets.
 Fabric is printed by digital printers with the design prepared on the computer using ink jet
based method of printing colorants onto fabric.
 The fabric is then passed through steam/heat chamber to cure the ink.
  Then steamed fabric required washing and drying.

INKJET PRINTING TECHNOLOGY

Inkjet printing is a type of computer printing that recreates the image by dropping droplets of ink onto
paperand textile material. Inkjet printers are the most commonly used type of printer, and range from small
inexpensive consumer models to expensive professional machines. The concept of inkjet printing
originated in the 20th century, and the technology was first extensively developed in the early 1950s.
Starting in the late 1970s.The emerging inkjet material market also uses inkjet technologies, typically
printheads using piezioelectric crystals, to deposit materials directly on substrates.

Images produced on inkjet printers are sometime sold under other names since the term is associated with
words like "digital", "computers", and "everyday printing", which can have negative connotations in some
contexts. Thesetrade names are usually used in the fine arts reproduction field. They include digigraph, lris
prints.

methods
There are two main technologies in use in contemporary inkjet printers.
 Continuous ink jet (CIJ)
 drop-on-demand (DOD).
 Continuous ink jet
The continuous inkjet (CIJ) method is used commercially for marking and coding of products
and packages. In 1867, lord kelvin who recorded telegraph signals as a continuous trace on paper
using an ink jet nozzle deflected by a magnetic coil. The first commercial devices were
introduced in 1951 by siemens.
In CIJ technology, a high-pressure pump directs liquid ink from a reservoir through a gunbody and a
microscopic nozzle, creating a continuous stream of ink droplets .A piezoelectric crystal creates an
acoustic wave as it vibrates within the gunbody and causes the stream of liquid to break into droplets at
regular intervals: 64,000 to 165,000 droplets per second may be achieved. The ink droplets are subjected to
an electrostatic field created by a charging electrode as they form; the field varies according to the degree
of drop deflection desired. This results in a controlled, variable electrostatic charge on each droplet.
Charged droplets are separated by one or more uncharged "guard droplets" to minimize electrostatic
repulsion between neighbouring droplets.
The charged droplets pass through another electrostatic field and are directed by electrostatic deflection
plates to print on the receptor material , or allowed to continue on undeflected to a collection gutter for re-
use. The more highly charged droplets are deflected to a greater degree. Only a small fraction of the
droplets is used to print, the majority being recycled.
CIJ is one of the oldest ink jet technologies in use and is fairly mature. The major advantages are the very
high velocity (≈20 m/s) of the ink droplets, which allows for a relatively long distance between print head
and substrate, and the very high drop ejection frequency, allowing for very high speed printing. Another
advantage is freedom from nozzle clogging as the jet is always in use, therefore allowing volatile solvents
such as ketonesand alcohols to be employed, giving the ink the ability to "bite" into the substrate and dry
quickly.
The ink system requires active solvent regulation to counter solvent evaporation during the time of flight
(time between nozzle ejection and gutter recycling), and from the venting process whereby air that is
drawn into the gutter along with the unused drops is vented from the reservoir. Viscosity is monitored

Drop on demand
Drop-on-demand (DOD) is divided into
 thermal DOD
 piezoelectric DOD.

Thermal DOD
Most consumer inkjet printers, including those from canon(FINE Cartridge system),hewlett- packard
andlexmark, use the thermal inkjet process. The idea of using thermal excitation to move tiny drops of ink
was developed independently by two groups at roughly the same time.John Vaught and a team at Hewlett-
Packard's Corvallis Division, and Canon engineer Ichiro Endo. Initially, in 1977, Endo's team was trying to
use the piezoelectric effect to move ink out of the nozzle but noticed that ink shot out of a syringe when it
was accidentally heated with a soldering iron. Vaught's work started in late 1978 with a project to develop
fast, low-cost printing. The team at HP found that thin-film resistors could produce enough heat to fire an
ink droplet. Two years later the HP and Canon teams found out about each other's work.
In the thermal inkjet process, the print cartridges consist of a series of tiny chambers, each containing a
heater, all of which are constructed by photolithography.To eject a droplet from each chamber, a pulse of
current is passed through the heating element causing a rapid vaporization of the ink in the chamber and
forming a bubble,] which causes a large pressure increase, propelling a droplet of ink onto the paper .The
ink'surface tension, as well as the condensation and resultant contraction of the vapor bubble, pulls a
further charge of ink into the chamber through a narrow channel attached to an ink reservoir. The inks
involved are usually water-based and use either pigments or dyes as the colorant. The inks must have a
volatile component to form the vapor bubble; otherwise droplet ejection cannot occur. As no special
materials are required, the print head is generally cheaper to produce than in other inkjet technologies.

Piezoelectric DOD .

Most commercial and industrial inkjet printers and some consumer printers use a piezoelectric material in
an ink-filled chamber behind each nozzle instead of a heating element. When a voltage is applied, the
piezoelectric material changes shape, generating a pressure pulse in the fluid, which forces a droplet of ink
from the nozzle. Piezoelectric (also called Piezo) inkjet allows a wider variety of inks than thermal inkjet
as there is no requirement for a volatile component, and no issue with kogation (buildup of ink residue),
but the print heads are more expensive to manufacture due to the use of piezoelectric material .
A DOD process uses software that directs the heads to apply between zero and eight droplets of ink per
dot, only where needed. Piezo inkjet technology is often used on production lines to mark products. For
instance, the "use-before" date is often applied to products with this technique; in this application the head
is stationary and the product moves past. This application requires a relatively large gap between the print
head and the substrate, but also yields a high speed, a long service life, and low.
INK FORMULATION
The basic problem with inkjet inks is the requirements for a coloring agent that will stay on the surface vs.
rapid dispersement of the carrier fluid.
Desktop inkjet printers, as used in offices or at home, tend to use aqeous inksbased on a mixture of water,
glycol anddyes or pigments . These inks are inexpensive to manufacture, but are difficult to control on the
surface of media, often requiring specially coated media. HP inks contain sulfonated polyazo black dye
.nitrates and other compounds. Aqueous inks are mainly used in printers with thermal inkjet heads, as these
heads require water to perform.
While aqueous inks often provide the broadest color gamut and most vivid color, most are not waterproof
without specialized coating or lamination after printing. Most Dye-based inks, while usually the least
expensive, are subject to rapid fading when exposed to light or ozone. Pigment-based aqueous inks are
typically more costly but provide much better long-term durability and ultraviolet resistance.
Some professional wide format printers use aqueous inks, but the majority in professional use today
employ a much wider range of inks, most of which require piezo inkjet heads and extensive maintenance:
Solvent inks
The main ingredient of these inks are volatile organic compounds (VOCs), organic chemical
compounds that have high vapor pressures. Color is achieved with pigments rather than dyes for
excellent fade-resistance. The chief advantage of solvent inks is that they are comparatively
inexpensive and enable printing on flexible, uncoated vinyl substrates, which are used to produce
vehicle graphics, billboards, banners and adhesive decals. Disadvantages include the vapour
produced by the solvent and the need to dispose of used solvent. Unlike most aqueous inks, prints
made using solvent-based inks are generally waterproof and ultraviolet-resistant without special
over-coatings. The high print speed of many solvent printers demands special drying equipment,
usually a combination of heaters and blowers. The substrate is usually heated immediately before
and after the print heads apply ink. Solvent inks are divided into two sub-categories: hard solvent
ink offers the greatest durability without specialized over-coatings but requires specialized
ventilation of the printing area to avoid exposure to hazardous fumes, while Mild or "Eco" solvent
inks, while still not as safe as aqueous inks, are intended for use in enclosed spaces without
specialized ventilation of the printing area. Mild solvent inks have rapidly gained popularity in
recent years as their color quality and durability have increased while ink cost has dropped
significantly.
UV-curable inks
These inks consist mainly of acrylic monomers with an initiator package. After printing, the ink is
cured by exposure to strong UV-light. Ink is exposed to UV radiation where a chemical reaction
takes place where the photo-initiators cause the ink components to cross-link into a solid.
Typically a shuttered mercury-vapor lamp or UV LED is used for the curing process. Curing
processes with high power for short periods of times (microseconds) allow curing inks on
 thermally sensitive substrates. UV inks do not evaporate, but rather cure or set as a result from this
chemical reaction. No material is evaporated or removed, which means about 100% of the
delivered volume is used to provide coloration. This reaction happens very quickly, which leads to
instant drying that results in a completely cured graphic in a matter of seconds. This also allows
for a very fast print process. As a result of this instant chemical reaction no solvents penetrate the
substrate once it comes off the printer, which allows for high quality prints. [10][11] The advantage of
UV-curable inks is that they "dry" as soon as they are cured, they can be applied to a wide range
of uncoated substrates, and they produce a very robust image. Disadvantages are that they are
expensive, require expensive curing modules in the printer, and the cured ink has a significant
volume and so gives a slight relief on the surface. Though improvements are being made in the
technology, UV-curable inks, because of their volume, are somewhat susceptible to cracking if
applied to a flexible substrate. As such, they are often used in large "flatbed" printers, which print
directly to rigid substrates such as plastic, wood or aluminium where flexibility is not a concern.
Dye sublimation inks
These inks contain special sublimation dyes and are used to print directly or indirectly on to
fabrics which consist of a high percentage of polyester fibres. A heating step causes the dyes to
sublimate into the fibers and create an image with strong color and good durability.
Hot melt inks
These inks consist mainly of waxy compounds which are heated past their melting point to enable
printing, and which harden upon hitting the cooled substrate.

Pre and post Treatments

Printing with reactive and acid dye inks generally involves pre and post treatment in order for
the dyestuff to fix onto the fabric. This is a multi- step process with a substantial degree of
complexity.

Reasons for Pre Treatments

The main reasons for separating the dyes from thickeners and other chemicals and applying
them separately to the fabric are as follows

 ‘All In’ inks are less stable and have lower storage stability, e.g. reactive dyes are
more likely to hydrolyse when alkali is present in the ink.
 Chemical in the ink cause corrosion of jet nozzle; the detrimental effect of the sodium
chloride on steel surfaces is well known, for instance; inks for use in ‘charged drop’
continuous printers should have low electrical conductivity.
 Thickeners in the ink often do not have the desired rheological properties.
  Some chemicals can be utilized in pre treated fabric but would cause stability
problems in the ink e.g. sodium carbonate as alkali for reactive de fixation is acceptable
on the fabric but not in the ink.
 The presence of large amounts of salts in aqueous inks reduces the solubility of the
dyes; concentrated inks are required in jet printing due to the small droplets size.
When pre treated fabric has been dried and then jet printed there is usually little need to
provide a drying station to dry the print.

Fixation
Steaming is the process normally used to fix printed textile. Reactive and acid dyes are steamed under
atmospheric pressure at just over 100ºC. During the process steam condensed on the fabric and is
absorbed by the thickners and hygroscopic agents in the pronted areas. Dyes and chemicals dissolves
and form extremely concentrated dyenath within the thickener film. As the result of extremely low
liquor ratio fixation is much more rapid than in exhaustion dyeing. High temperature steam is
necessary for the fixation of disperse dyes on polyester. The Tg of polyester in steam is lower than it
is in dry air, and fixation is more efficient. Usually steam is heated to 170-180ºC at atmospheric
pressure, but sometimes pressure steaming at 130-150ºC is used. Pigment prints are cured hot air in a
QAstenter or a roller baker.

MACHINE FOR THE DIGITAL PRINTNG

Epson F9370
Epson F7200
Miami TS300
Mutoh VJ-1638
Roland XT-640