The printing industry has existed for a long time. From the perspective of the entire development, the traditional printing process has gradually revealed some shortcomings in the long-term production process, such as long process flow, large amount of sewage, and complex operation procedures. At the same time, digital printing has grown rapidly with its simple, fast and environmentally friendly characteristics.

Although there are many ways and types of digital printing, there are few digital printing solutions applied to polyester-cotton fabrics. Polyester-cotton blended fabrics are textiles blended in a certain proportion of polyester chemical fiber and cotton fiber.

Polyester-cotton fabric not only has the characteristics of cotton fabric such as wicking, softness and comfort, but also has the characteristics of polyester fabric such as high dimensional stability, small shrinkage, easy washing and quick drying. Polyester-cotton fabric is suitable for making various garments and is a typical fabric, Because the fiber blending characteristics of polyester-cotton fabrics make it better to be printed by pigment ink.

However, there are still the following problems when printing polyester-cotton fabrics using pigment ink:

1.Due to the hydrophobicity of polyester chemical fiber, the pigment ink easily diffuses along the capillary channels between the fiber bundles, which always causes a certain degree of infiltration. On the contrary, cotton fiber has good hydrophilicity and better absorption of ink. Therefore, the two fibers have different absorption effects on textile pigment ink during the polyester-cotton digital printing process, which ultimately affects the printing quality of the fabric.

2.Due to the wicking effect and other reasons, the ink droplets diffuse between the fibers, affecting the clarity of the fabric printing. Textile pigment ink has no affinity for the fiber, the pigment ink is difficult to fix on the fabric if directly use the pigment ink to digitally print the fabric, which seriously affects the color fastness of the fabric. Therefore, when digitally printing polyester-cotton fabrics, it is necessary to cooperate with appropriate processes to improve the printing effect.

3.In the process of digital printing with pigment ink, the pigment ink does not enter the fiber, but adheres to the fiber surface. Therefore, the color rendering effect of the pigment ink is poor. The above factors will make the printing quality fail to meet the standard.

HONGSAM Digital Printing Solutions for Polyester-cotton Fabrics:

1.Pretreatment: dip the polyester-cotton fabric to prevent seepage and fix color before digital printing it. There are two purposes: one is to provide conditions for the coloring of pigment ink on the fiber, and the other is to prevent the ink from penetrating on the fabric and affecting the clarity of the printing.

2.Fabric color fixing agent: fastness can not only be improved by adding special color fixing agent during pretreatment, appropriate baking treatment is also of certain significance to its fastness improvement. Appropriate pre-printing treatment and post-printing treatment will greatly improve the quality of inkjet printing.

3.HONGSAM has developed special pigment inks for polyester-cotton fabric and other chemical fiber fabrics, which improves the affinity between ink and chemical fiber compared to ordinary ink. After color fixation, the ink has better adhesion to the fabric. With the pre- and post-treatment, the dry and wet friction and soap fastness are greatly improved, which can be improved by 1-1.5 levels compared to ordinary pigment inks.

HONGSAM Digital, a 23 years inkjet inks manufacturer and digital printing solutions provider, will be your reliable partner for digital printing.

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