What is Dye ink and its application?

What is Dye ink and its application?

Dye ink generally refers to water-soluble ink, but in fact, solvent-based inks made of alcohol-soluble/oil-soluble dyes are also available. Pigment ink is insoluble in water, so it needs to be superfinely dispersed before it can be applied. The ink produced with pigment has a narrower color gamut and darker color, but the black ink does not have sharp characters, no burrs, and is waterproof and lightfast.

It is made of dyes/solvents (mainly water) and various additives, such as moisture absorbents, surfactants, dispersants, antioxidants, corrosion inhibitors, acid-base stabilizers, light stabilizers, etc.

The color is bright and pleasing to the eye. Commonly used colors are: magenta, pure blue, yellow, black and other colors. In order to enhance the performance of transitional colors and grayscale tones, light pink/light blue/medium gray/light gray are added to make the color of the print Richer and more rounded.

The requirements of water-soluble dye inks for dyes are

(1) Good water solubility;

(2) Strong tinting power;

(3) Bright and pure color;

(4) The aqueous solution is stable and does not deteriorate;

(5) The color is firm and weatherable.

The dyes used in the manufacture of water-soluble inkjet are mainly acid dyes and direct dyes.

The ink made with water-soluble dyes has poor fastness. Mainly the light fastness and oxidation-reduction fastness, because of the excellent re-solubility of water-soluble dyes, this type of ink is not water resistant.

Acid dyes are characterized by bright colors. The disadvantages are poor light fastness, high color migration (migration), and prone to bleeding. After the print is placed for 2-3 weeks, the color and the color contact edge will be blurred, resulting in a third color Decrease the quality of printed parts. The cost of inkjet made with acid dyes is lower. Low-priced inkjets mostly use acid dyes as colorants.

Direct dyes have relatively large molecular weights, low migration, high light fastness, no halo and bleeding, high definition of prints, and storage time more than ten times longer than acid dye prints.

The cost of inkjet using direct dyes as colorants is much higher than that of acid dyes. All high-end inkjets on the market use direct dyes as colorants.

Dye inks are molecular-level fully-dissolved inks with a diameter of 1~2 nanometers. The probability of ink head blocking is very small. It is easy to be absorbed by the material after printing, and it is printed on flat and smooth paper. It has a good light radiation performance. Therefore, the ability of color reproduction is relatively strong, the printed image is colorful, and the cost is low; but because the dye ink is not protected by a layer of polymer on the surface like the pigment ink, the molecules are easy to decompose under harsh conditions. Causes fading.