Some characteristics of ink jet transfer foils and their influence on the print quality of cotton fabric

Abstract

The inkjet technique has a very broad application and as such the possibility of printing on different printing substrates (fabrics, paper, metal, glass, plastics ...). Besides the direct printing, the indirect printing with thermal Inkjet transfer on fabrics has become more common. In this work the two characteristic inkjet transfer foils (Iron On, TEC print Cling) were tested, which were fitted for accepting the water based inks as well as inks based on organic solvents. The objective evaluation of the reproduction quality was achieved by CIE L*a*b*; CIE ΔE2000. The results confirmed that both printed transfer foils (Iron On, TEC print) had the greatest colour changes after 6 days. Among the water based inks, the maximum changes had black colour (ΔEC=9.22), while minimum changes had yellow colour (ΔEγ=0.80). The organic solvent based inks had smaller changes than the water solvent based inks. The aim of this work was to investigate the time (t=0 h, t=1 h, t= 144 h) in which the preparation of prints made by inkjet transfer foils gave the best quality reproduction on cotton material. Although the water based inks are ecologically more acceptable, the results show that the preparation of Inkjet transfer foils printed with the ink based on organic solvents are more acceptable.