Systems and methods for manufacturing pigmented radiation curable inks for ink-based digital printing
AssigneeXerox Corporation
InventorsFrank Ping-Hay LEE, Aurelian Valeriu MAGDALINIS, Marcel BRETON
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Abstract
A method for continuous production of radiation curable ink suitable for ink-based digital printing includes feeding ingredients suitable for forming a pigment concentrate to an extruder; blending the ingredients in the extruder to form a pigment concentrate paste; feeding additional ingredients to the extruder for blending with the ink concentrate to form an ink product configured for ink-based digital printing, wherein a pigment particle size is less than about 1 micron.
Claims20
A radiation-curable ink production method, comprising:
- providing ink ingredients to a first end of a mixing chamber, the ingredients being selected for forming pigment concentrate;
- and
- blending the ink ingredients by conveying the ingredients toward a second end of the mixing chamber to form a pigment concentrate in the mixing chamber, the pigment concentrate having a pigment particle diameter of about 1 micron or less.
The method of claim 2, the providing ingredients further comprising:
- feeding the ingredients into a mixing chamber of the mixer at a feed port at the first end of the mixing chamber, the ingredients comprising pigment and at least one of monomers, oligomers, dispersant, thermal stabilizer, and viscosity modifier, the viscosity modifier being selected from the group comprising:
- clay and silica.
A system for producing radiation curable ink for ink-based digital printing, comprising:
- a mixing chamber having a first end and a second end;
- and
- a feed port connected to the first end, wherein the mixing chamber is configured for conveying ink ingredients fed to the mixing chamber at the feed port of the first end toward the second end to mix the ingredients.
A non-transitory computer-computer readable medium storing instructions for causing a mixing system to produce radiation curable ink suitable for ink-based digital printing, the instructions comprising:
- causing a feed device to provide to a mixing chamber ingredients for blending to form a pigment concentrate;
- and
- causing the mixing chamber to blend the ink ingredients to from a pigment concentrate paste by conveying the ingredients from a first end of the mixing chamber toward a second end of the mixing chamber.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.