Hot air impingement drying system for inkjet images
AssigneeXerox Corporation
InventorsJohn J. Meyers, Roger G. Leighton, Dawn M. Api, Gerald A. Domoto, Elias Panides, Narayan V. Deshpande, Andrew W. Hays, S. Warren Lohr, Thomas N. Taylor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A dryer uses a two-phase drying system having a brief water condensation interval, followed by impinging parallel laminar recirculating hot air jets which impinge on wet ink to increase the copy rate of inkjet printing and to increase the quality of the printed image.
Claims43
A method of improving the appearance of a printed ink image on a recording medium comprising:
- impinging warm, moist air onto the printed ink image before the ink has dried;
- condensing water vapor from the warm moist air onto the printed ink image before the ink has dried;
- drying the printed ink image on the recording medium using the warm moist air.
A dryer for enhancing the appearance of a printed ink image on a recording medium, comprising:
- an air input, an air output, a recording medium inlet and a recording medium outlet;
- apparatus to ensure that the air within the dryer has enough moisture so that the dew point temperature of the air is above the temperature of the recording medium and ink printed thereon at the recording medium inlet;
- air impingement apparatus to impinge warm moist air onto the recording medium and printed ink image before the ink has dried to initially condense water vapor from the moist air onto the ink and recording medium and, subsequently, to uniformly dry the ink on the recording medium.
A dryer for drying printed ink deposited on a recording medium, comprising:
- a first dryer section with a laminar flow of air to impinge on the recording medium;
- a second dryer section with a turbulent flow of air to impinge on the recording medium;
- an apparatus to convey the recording medium with the printed ink to the first dryer section and then to the second dryer section.
A dryer for enhancing the appearance of a printed ink image on a recording medium, comprising:
- an air input, an air output, a recording medium inlet and a recording medium outlet;
- apparatus to ensure that the air within the dryer has enough moisture so that the dew point temperature of the air is above the temperature of the recording medium and ink printed thereon at the recording medium inlet;
- air impingement apparatus to impinge warm moist air onto the recording medium and printed ink image before the ink has dried to initially condense water vapor from the moist air onto the ink and recording medium and, subsequently, to uniformly dry the ink on the recording medium;
- a first dryer section with a laminar flow of air to impinge on the recording medium;
- a second dryer section with a turbulent flow of air to impinge on the recording medium;
- and
- an apparatus to convey the recording medium with the printed ink to the first dryer section and then to the second dryer section.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.