What is sublimation ink of digital printer

  Digital printing can be divided into many types, acid, activity, sublimation, coating, etc. Different types of ink are also different: dispersed digital printing uses sublimation ink, so what is sublimation ink and what characteristics it has?

  The molecular structure of disperse dyes is relatively small. The molecules do not contain water-soluble groups, only contain polar groups. Its water-soluble is very poor, with  small particles dispersed in the water. It is a kind of non-ionic dyes. Because dyes need the help of dispersing agent to form a uniform water dispersion, which is called disperse dyes.

According to the color separation to distinguish, sublimation ink can be roughly divided into dispersed orange, dispersed blue, dispersed yellow, dispersed red composition. Several different disperse ink can be mingled according to a certain proportion of collocation to get dispersed black, dispersed green, dispersed purple and other dispersed dyeing. Digital printing industry calls this dispersion ink heat transfer printing ink. This kind of ink’s molecules are small, its structure without water-soluble groups. With the help of dispersing agent in the dye, the ink can be uniformly dispersed to dye.

  According to the mode of production, this kind of ink can be divided into “thermal sublimation transfer ink” and “disperse direct ink-jet ink”. The basic characteristics of these two types of ink are the same. In the practical application,  because of the different ink medium, in some places, such as surface tension, permeability can be different. The medium of sublimation ink and thermal sublimation is similar, that is polyester fabric. Because of the trait of direct ink-jet, advertising banners make extensive use of such inks.  Of course, direct ink-jet can also be used to print the patterns that thermal transfer printing can do.

 Sublimation transfer printing ink printing’s medium is thermal transfer paper. The industry is mainly used in sports clothes, swimsuits and other polyester fiber fabrics.  Disperse direct ink-jet ink can be directly printed on chemical fiber fabric or polyester coating surface materials. After printing, it needs high temperature to fast the color.

  Sublimation ink characteristics: low temperature dye ink, sublimation fastness is low, good evenness for printing, suitable for dry dyeing method dyeing, often called E disperse dye ink; High temperature dye ink, high sublimation fastness, but poor uniformity, suitable for hot melt dyeing, known as S disperse dye ink; Medium temperature dye ink, sublimation fastness between the above two, also known as SE disperse dye ink material. It is suggested to select dyes according to different dyeing methods when dyeing polyester with disperse ink.