Technological Revolutions in Textile Printing
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Indian Journal of Fibre & Textile Research Vol. 2 1, March 1996, pp. 50-56 Technological revolutions In textile printing R B Chavan Department o f" Texlilc T.:chno logy. Indian Inslitute of" Tel: hnology. ew Delhi 11 001 6. India , Widespread acceptance of demand-acti vated manufacturing architecture (DAMA) and j ust-in-tim e (J IT) sa les and marketi ng co ncc pts have placed tremend ous pressure on tcx ti le printers. Prescn tl y avai lable continuous ro tary scrcen printing equipment are often inflexible in tcr m ~ of quick customer responsc and shoJ'l run s. I n th e presc nt article. an attempt has been made to review critically two tcchnological innova tIons in tc xtile pri nt in g, vii. xerography and in.k jCt pri nt in g. QUi or these tWO , ink jet printing has achieved considerahle success till the pIc-prod ucti on stage. i.c. sample printing, a nd R&D work is continuing in deve lopcd countries to pcrfe<.; tthl: tec!lnol ogy for production printing. It is envisaged that by the turn of thi s cent ury, a customer in stead of purchasin g th c printed fabric ava ilabl e in thc stores may be able to scan th e designs on computer, se lec t the des ign and colour combination, or cl-c~! t e the new design a nd load th e information to the computer of the printcr <lnli ge t the printed kngt h of the fabric wi th a dcsign of hi s/her choice. Keywords: In k jet printing, Textile printing, Xerography J Introduction o ur separations produced . The digital info rmatio n ~ o tary screen printing machine was introduced in genera ted can subsequently be used tQ produce scre 196.1 and since then there is continued ri se in its popu ens directl y by the latest laser engraving technology la rity. Worldwide, 60% of fabric printing is done by o r by the conventional means using computer produ iotary screen printing a nd 18(% by flat screen print ced transparencies. Fig. 2 shows integra tion of CAD ing. Although rotary screen printing machines a re system' into print production. most suited for production runs, they are not ideal to In spite of these developments, the currentl y domi meet the requirements of dema nd-activated ma nufa nent rotary screen printing method has seve rallimita cturing architecture (DAMA) a ndjust in time (lIT) tions, such as colour and pattern changes require long concepts. According to these concepts the tex til e pri process set-up time, screen productio n is slow a nd nters must respond to the delivery of hi gh quality fas ex pensive, and screens have relati ve ly short lives a nd hion designs with wide range of colour combinations req uire considerable storage space even when no t be in extremely short time. In addition, there is also eq ing used. Thus, a new technology for fabric printing is ual pressure on textile printers to produce bulk prints needed tha t will permit frequent style a nd colour cha in an environment-friendly ma nner. nges with minimum downtime for cha ngeover and Prior to 1980, the majo rity of printers followed will a ll ow computer sto rage o r design info rma ti o n. essentially a totally manual approach to the produc Two revolu tio nary printing techniques, viz. xerogr ~l tion of textile prints, from the initial design stage to phic printing a nd ink jet printing, have the potentia l first bulk production. fig. I shows the a pproach foil · o f meeting these requirement owed in textile printing a t that time 1.2. After ITM"x 83 show in Milan the situa tion chan 2 Xerographic Printing ged with the availability of relati vely low-cost a nd The commonly known xerography o r photocopy increasing powerful PC-based systems. Since ITMA' ing technique is essentiall y based 0 11 elect rostatic 91 in Hanover, there has been dramatic increase in the powder printing technology. The basic steps involved associated technology of visual di splay units, graphi c ill xerographic printing4 - 7 a re: controllers, scanners and high volume data storage • Formation of a nega tive image o n a light sensitive systems. With the right investment the printers now photoconductive (PC) surface (often a selenium or scan designs into a CAD system where a number o f polymer coated drum) via light reflectio n from a prin colour combinations can be changed, designs mani led master sheet. More recently, the process is accom pulated, put into repeat, colourways created and col- plished by impingement with a laser beam controlled CHAVAN: TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTIONS IN TEXTILE PRINTING 51 Manuallracing Original Sample and separalion Engraving design ......... r-- r-- prinling ~ produclion C I u s I Colour Fabric 0 mixing preparation m e r Bulk• production• prinVsleamlwashing finishinglinspeclion Sample production: time scale 2-8 weeks II Bulk production: time scale 3-I 2 weeks III (including u~ production) Fig. I- Textile printing by conventional methods M I!":o H ~OM H... _a_: .._re_!n._ _'_~_'..JH Eng ..~ I SeaMing • Cleaning-up , Hardcopy • Laser (led (flat becUdrum) • Rf'duce colours printer Of'Stork) • Put Into repeal ~ Textile • Conventional • CoIou ring • Paper • Separations Post printing ...- Protjuction Sample slages printing r- printing • Steaming • Flat screen • Sample printer • Washing-oH • Rotary • Coupon prinler • Finishing • Roller • Bulk machine Fig. 2- lntegration or CAD systems into print production by a computer into whose software the desired image per has reached a sophisticated level of technology has been digitally scanned from a CAD station. and is widely used for printing office, industrial and • Developing a negative image into a positive with a computer stationery. powder developer system, transferring toner to the still charged design areas of the drum. 2.1 Xerographic Printing of Textiles 4 5 • Transferring the positive toner image from drum to Considerable research work . has been carried copy paper via electrostatics'. out at Georgia Institute of Technology in the past live • Melting the toner by heated roll, and air cooling to years for adapting xerographic printing to the patter fix the print. ning of textile fabrics. The research in this area is dire • Cleaning the PC drum and recycling any untrans cted in two directions, viz. system development and ferred toner to begin a repeat of the print cycle. toner development. The coloured xerox prints a re obtained using ma uve (red), cyan (blue), yellow and black toners. The 2.1 .1 System Development manufacturers claim that by usi ng these four toners as Current systems of xerography are developed for many as 30,000 shades can be produced via overlap paper printing which operate primarily batch-wise ping and subsequent melt blending of the primary and for fairly narrow width (8 .5 in). A single sheet of toners. Xerographic colour print production on pa- paper is printed at a time. Thirty-six inch wide copiers 52 INDIAN J. FIBRE TEXT. RES., MARCH 1996 have been developed recently. Two major challenges progress through the route of new polymer systems or faced by the xerography technology for fabric print modification of existing polymers. ing are handling larger widths and continuous print ing at a speed required in modern printing. Therefore, 2.2 Advantages of Xerography in Textile Printing a copier for printing textiles would be different since it Xerography has the following advantages in print must operate continuously at a speed of up to 50 ing fabrics: m/min. Information storage and input for image for • Information storage can be computerized, elimina mation should be accomplished using a computeri ting the need for large storage space for screens. zed system which would facilitate fast style and col • Since the system can be computerized, fast style and our changeovers as well as aid in production of new colour changeover are possible. designs. Considerable research is in progress at Geor • Potential for producing all shades using three prim gia Institute of Technology for developing a suitable aries and the black. xerography system for continuous printing oftexti • Pigments which are generally less expensive than les. dyes and offer better li ght fastness and Jther propert ies can be used for coloration . 2.1.2 Toner Development • Washing and drying after printing are eliminated. The second area of research for success in adaption of xerography for textile printing is the development 2.3 LiJllitations of Xerography in Textile Printing of. tonerS . Xerography toner consists of a polymeric While xerography has much promise for fabric pri bindermixed with a suitable pigment colour, both nting, current technology has been deve loped for pa hpving very low particle size. Binders in typical paper per printing. Fabric printing has requirements bey toners generally consist of styrene/acrylate copoly onu those for paper printing. Xerographic paper pri mers or polyesters. Although excellent prints are obt nting systems have been designed primarily for oper ainable on textile fabrics, such as polyester/cotton ating in"bak:h mode for fairl y narrow widths. Fabric blends, by using pa per toners, the fastness properties, printing systems wi ll need to print much wider widths in a continuous mode. The toner binder requirements especially wet and dry crock fastne?s, are poor. for fabric printing are quite different from those for Typical screen printing binders, composed of com paper printing. The paper toner binders consist of plex acrylic terpolymers, are amorphous film-form styrene/acrylate copolymers with poo r adhesion to ing materials of high clarity.