Silver-containing inkjet ink
OwnerNicole Reinartzinventor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
This invention pertains to inkjet ink comprising silver salt (silver ink), and an ink set comprising said silver ink and an ink with reducing agent to reduce the silver in the silver ink. The invention further pertains to an inkjet printing method for printing with the inventive ink set to create metallic silver images (or patterns). The printed silver patterns can be used, for example, in electronics and decorative applications.
Claims19
An inkjet ink comprising aqueous vehicle having dissolved therein a silver salt and an amine sensitizer for the silver salt, wherein the amine sensitizer is a compound containing at least one amine group, and wherein the ink contains at least about 1% by weight silver ion (Ag1+) based on the total weight of the ink.
An inkjet ink set comprising a first inkjet ink and a second inkjet ink, wherein the first inkjet ink comprises an aqueous vehicle having dissolved therein a silver salt and an amine sensitizer for the silver salt, wherein the amine sensitizer is a compound containing at least one amine group, and wherein the ink contains at least about 1% by weight silver ion (Ag1+) based on the total weight of the ink;
- and the second inkjet ink comprises a reducing agent is capable of reducing silver salt to silver metal.
A method for ink jet printing a silver pattern or image onto a substrate, comprising the steps of:
- (a) providing an ink jet printer that is responsive to digital data signals;
- (b) loading the printer with a substrate to be printed;
- (c) loading the printer with a first inkjet ink comprising an aqueous vehicle having dissolved therein a silver salt and an amine sensitizer for the silver salt, wherein the amine sensitizer is a compound containing at least one amine group, and wherein the ink contains at least about 1% by weight silver ion (Ag1+) based on the total weight of the ink;
- (d) ejecting the inkjet ink onto the substrate in response to the digital data signals to print an image or pattern of the silver salt on the substrate;
- and
- (e) concurrently with or subsequent to the ejecting step, effecting reduction of at least a portion of the silver salt in the image or pattern on the substrate to silver metal to produce the silver image or pattern.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.