Dye-sublimation inkjet printing for textile
AssigneeKornit Digital Ltd.
InventorsAllon Shimoni, Jacob Mozel
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Abstract
Provided herein is an inkjet dye-sublimation ink composition that is formulated to interact with an immobilizing composition such that the ink composition coagulates on the surface of an absorptive substrate, thereby substantially limiting soaking of the ink composition into the substrate. Also provided are a printing process and a printing machine, wherein the ink composition is directly printed on the substrate concomitantly with the immobilizing composition, and thereafter undergo heat-pressing to afford a dye-sublimation transfer of the dye to the substrate, thereby forming an image which is characterized by sharp and well defined edges of the dyed areas.
Claims11
A process of direct inkjet printing an image on a synthetic fabric using a dye-sublimation ink composition, comprising:
- contacting at least a portion of the synthetic fabric with an immobilizing composition;
- concomitantly printing the dye-sublimation ink composition directly on said portion of the substrate;
- and
- heating the synthetic fabric to thereby form the image on the surface of the substrate,
- wherein:
- said dye-sublimation ink composition is essentially devoid of a film-forming agent;
- said dye-sublimation ink composition is formulated to elevate the viscosity of the dye-sublimation ink composition by at least 10-folds, upon contacting said immobilizing composition, thereby substantially preventing said dye-sublimation ink composition from soaking into the synthetic fabric;
- and
- said heating of the synthetic fabric is effected while pressing the synthetic fabric.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.