Ink Jet Dye Fixation and Coating Pigments, 1998 Coating Conference Proceedings

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Ink jet printing is a rapidly growing method of documentation and communication, due to low equipment cost and color reproduction. Accordingly, many papermakers have developed and are developing papers that are compatible with this process. Because ink jet printing is quite new and different from established processes like offset, gravure, and flexographic printing, little mechanistic work has been published to help with paper design. A unique feature of current ink jet printing is that ink setting depends on direct fixation of colorants on the paper surface. No viscous resins are present to control colorant movement. This report describes the fixation of commercial ink jet inks using thin layer chromatography. It is shown that silica based coating pigments and specialty precipitated calcium carbonate pigments fix ink jet dyes by different mechanisms. It is hypothesized that the differences stem from different interactions between the pigment surfaces and carboxylic and sulfonic acid groups on the dyes.