Skip to main content

What's Inside Dye Sublimation Ink?

What is Dye Sublimation Printing?

It's the chemistry behind dye sublimation that makes it the correct technique for printing on polyester and polyester resin coated products. Using a wide-format inkjet printer, dye-sub inks are printed on a special transfer paper. From there, the ink is heat transferred from the paper onto a fabric by using a heat press. The ink changes from a solid to a gas (hence the term “sublimation”) and enters the polyester fibers.

The polymers in the polyester bond when heated, which allows the graphics to quickly become permanently embedded into your materials. As a heated gas, the ink becomes fully infused into the fabric instead of just printed on the surface, resulting in long-lasting, high-quality products.

 

Dye sublimation ink is used in a special printing process that allows the ink to permeate the surface of the object being printed rather than just sitting on the surface. The ink is specially designed to allow the sublimation process to take place, but what is in the ink that allows this to happen? Below is a breakdown of what is actually in dye sublimation ink.

 

Dye sublimation ink


Types of Dye Sublimation Ink

Before we can detail what dye sublimation ink is made of, we must first explain about the two main types of ink. The first type of dye sublimation ink is solvent — solvent ink is an oil-based dye sublimation ink, in which the pigment is suspended in some type of oil. The other type of ink is aqueous, where the pigment is suspended in water. Water based inks are compatible with most inkjet printers but not grand format printers, and do not require ventilation or produce any odors when being used. However, because the water is absorbed by the paper, it has the tendency to make the sublimation paper ‘cockle’ which can affect the final design. Solvent dye sublimation inks do not cockle the paper, and work with most grand format printers, however their print density is lower, which can affect how bright the colors appear in the final product.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

What do you Know About Eco-Solvent Ink?

Eco-solvent ink, or environmentally friendly solvent ink, is a new type of outdoor solvent inkjet with high safety, low volatility, low toxicity and high flash point that has been popular in the outdoor solvent-based digital inkjet market in recent years. Ink, its development has not stalled. At present, some people have put forward higher requirements and developed it into a green solvent outdoor inkjet. It is required to have a boiling point higher than 150°C and a closed cup flash point higher than 65°C. As a   Uv Ink Manufacturer , I would like to share with you. ESL Eco Solvent Ink Advantage Compared with solvent-based inks, the biggest advantage of eco-solvent inks is environmental friendliness, which is mainly reflected in the reduction of volatile matter VOC and the elimination of many toxic organic solvents, which are no longer needed in the production workshop of eco-solvent inkjet printers. Ventilation device. Eco-solvent ink not only maintains the advantages of high-pre...

How do you know which ink to use for your printer?

If you are using a new printer for the first time, you may not be familiar with the type of cartridges your printer uses. Each printer uses a specific printer cartridge family for printing. The printer cartridge family is identified by the printer brand name and cartridge number. 1. The easiest way to determine which cartridges are appropriate for your printer is to turn on the printer and see which cartridges are currently in the machine. 2. If there are no cartridges inside the printer, you can search for the printer model on the manufacturer's website. The manufacturer's page for your printer should contain a list of compatible cartridges. 3. You can also refer to the printer user guide that came with your machine to identify the cartridge series.    Recognizing individual Cartridges for Epson As you know, each type use individual cartridges for Epson printers , which means that each cartridge contains a specific color of ink. This is different from HP's thre...

Solvent Dye Sublimation Ink

Solvent dye sublimation inks are basically pigments suspended in an oil base, but of course there are other stabilizers and surfactants in the mix. Solvent inks may contain a chloride-vinyl acetate copolymer at 2-6%, a polymeric amide at 0-4%, a ethyl acetate at 0-4%, 2-methoxy-1-mthylethyl at 0-1.25%, N-butyl acetate at 0-2.5%, and Butan-2-OL at 0-0.5%. There will also be a distillate at 0-3%, and at least one subliminal disperse dye at a rate of 0.25% to 9%, which must be insoluble in either an included ether or acetate. Propylene glycol must be included in the range of 0% to 2%, and an additional acetate will make up 78% to 95% of the solution. This entire solvent based dye sublimation ink solution must, when mixed properly, be able to flow through the head of an ink jet printer in order to function properly.   Aqueous Dye Sublimation Ink In aqueous dye sublimation ink, water is the solvent in which the pigments and other ingredients are suspended, and the water will typically m...