Making Coated Ink Jet Paper on Metering Size Presses, 2000 Metered Size Press Forum

Synthetic silica, the traditional matte ink jet paper coating pigment, cannot be coated at commercial speeds without significant sacrifices in operating efficiency. Commercial results with a new surface-enhanced aluminosilicate (SEAS) pigment provide a viable alternative to silica in ink jet coating formulations, especially with metering size press (MSP) methods. The SEAS pigment has sufficient porosity to dry ink jet inks rapidly, so it allows coatings to resist lateral ink spread (or whiskering) and strike through.

Optimized SEAS-based coatings generally need less binder and other costly ingredients than silica-based coating fomulations. A trial with an optimized SEAS-based formulation on a commerical MSP papermachine at 1050 m/min. produced over 100 tons of C1S matte ink jet paper. This paper compared favorably in sheet and print properties to commercial paper commonly used in ink jet printers, i.e., a silica-based coated grade and an uncoated, multipurpose grade.