Radiation imagery chemistry: process – composition – or product th – Imaged product – Structurally defined
Reexamination Certificate
2002-08-20
2004-02-10
Schilling, Richard L. (Department: 1752)
Radiation imagery chemistry: process, composition, or product th
Imaged product
Structurally defined
C430S014000, C430S259000, C430S262000, C430S263000, C430S496000, C430S533000, C430S536000, C430S538000, C347S106000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06689517
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to imaging output materials. In a preferred form it relates to the use of a laminated fabric base material for silver halide and ink jet images.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
It is known to create images on fabric, with paintings on canvas and screen printing fabric. It has been desired to obtain the look of an image on fabric using silver halide imaging and inkjet printing.
Prior art methods of generating photographic quality images on fabric are time consuming and costly. The photographer prints the silver halide image on regular silver halide imaging paper and carefully peels the emulsion layer off the paper support. It can take several tries, ruining many images, before the emulsion is peeled off of the support in one piece. The emulsion layer is then glued onto a fabric and placed in a press where pressure is applied to the emulsion and fabric so the emulsion takes on the surface characteristics of the fabric. This long and involved process is the reason for the high prices of photographic “canvas” prints.
The use of inkjet printing techniques to print on textiles has met with several problems. First, and in spite of the large number of inkjet inks currently available, inkjet printed images on textiles are often of low quality. For example, the printed images often smear upon handling, exhibit bleed (the intrusion of one color into an adjacent color), are moisture sensitive, and are dull, i.e., colored inks when printed fail to accurately produce the expected hues. Moreover, the printed images are often neither water-fast nor detergent-resistant, resulting in fading of the printed image after washing. Printed textile images with these drawbacks are wholly unacceptable to the textile industry, which requires not only that the image be both water-resistant and detergent-resistant, but also that the colors and hues are those deemed acceptable in the textile field. In addition, the textile industry also demands that while the colorant of the ink must adhere tenaciously to the substrate, it also must not alter the desirable hand properties of the substrate. This combination of requirements is very difficult to accomplish. Furthermore, fabrics tend to have loose fibers that clog the inkjet print head causing plugged nozzles and degraded imaged quality.
Prior art imaging elements are typically glossy and have a low surface roughness. The desired approach for typical imaging elements is to reduce the roughness of the base by providing a thick polymer coating on paper or laminate the paper with a high modulus biaxially oriented polymer sheet. U.S. Pat. No. 5,866,282 (Bourdelais et al) provides a method for reducing the roughness of paper by lamination of 0.22 micrometer cellulose paper with high modulus biaxially oriented polymer sheets. The resulting imaging element is smooth and very low in surface roughness.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,300,053 (Fujiwara et al.) relates to a photothermographic element where the support could be fabric. This fabric could be coated with a polymer. While the photothermographic imaging element does provide an acceptable image, the surface replication of the fabric is too low to provide the look and feel to the image. High surface replication fabric imaging elements are desirable in that they provide a unique look and feel that allows commercial display imaging to use texture to provide a look consistent with images that have a high textural content such as clothing, animals and upholstery.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,143,480 (Obayashi at al.) relates to a leuco dye and image recording medium wherein the base could be a non-woven fabric. U.S. Pat. No. 6,297,001 (Takiguchi et al.) relates to thermally developable photosensitive materials where the base could be fabric or cotton fabric. In this patent, the fabric is not polymer coated or sized, the fabric has a tendency to absorb the dye making the image less saturated. In the present invention, the fabric is protected form the imaging element by a polymeric sheet keeping the entire imaging element at the surface of the structure creating a saturated image.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,291,150 (Camp et al.) relates to a fabric as a base in a laminated structure for a silver halide imaging element. While the fabric base does provide a fabric image, the replication of the fabric is low and does not yield the desired look and feel of a differentiated imaging element. Fabrics disclosed have low roughness as the intent was to provide glossy image elements.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,749,092 (Arrington) relates to a polymer/glass matrix of polymer and glass fibers for use as a photographic support for increased stiffness. While the glass fiber does provide increased strength, the glass fiber is not woven into a pattern and thus does not add the desired textural appeal.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,245,710 (Hare et al.) relates to an imaging transfer system and process for transferring a thermal recording image to a receptor element where the receptor element is fabric. The fabric receiving element is not polymer coated or sized making the image less saturated because the fabric has a tendency to absorb the dye.
PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED
There is a need to provide a textural quality to high quality images while at the same time not interfering with image formation.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The invention provides an imaging element comprising at least one image layer and a base wherein said base comprises an upper polymer sheet having an elastic modulus of between 500 and 6,000 MPa said upper sheet being adhered to a textile having a roughness of between 0.8 and 8.0 micrometers, and a lower polymer sheet adhered to said textile.
ADVENTAGEOUS EFFECT OF THE INVENTION
The invention provides an imaging element that has the look and feel of a textural fabric material. The invention also provides the bi-directional strength and fire resistance to the imaging element.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
It has been found that a composite material consisting of a textile and polymer sheet to form a base for an imaging elements such as ink jet receiver layers or light sensitive silver halide imaging systems, eliminates some of the issues surrounding printing with imaging directly onto fabric while still maintaining the look and feel of fabric. By separating the imaging layer and the fabric with a laminated a plastic film the imaging layer takes on the texture of the film, but the imaging layer does not penetrate the film. Because the imaging chemistry is concentrated at the top of the imaging element, the image has higher chroma and is more saturated. With an environmental protection film placed over the image, the image is also water and detergent-fast. The laminated structures also prevent stray fibers from the fabric from clogging inkjet heads or contaminating silver halide developing chemistry. In the case of a silver halide print, the processing steps of striping the emulsion layer and reattaching it to a cloth could be eliminated by using the silver halide laminated fabric image. The silver halide image would be formed directly onto the laminated fabric with the desired surface texture.
The texture and feel of fabric is valued for commercial printing, portraits and painting re-prints. The texture and feel of the fabric material is difficult to reproduce using prior art cellulose paper fiber base material which tend to yield smooth continuous surfaces. Further, the textile imaging element of the invention provides a significant strength improvement compared to paper base imaging systems allowing the invention material to be used for commercial printing, sails, furniture slip covers, cat scratch post, and wall coverings.
Woven fabrics that are made from thermoplastic yarns tend to disassemble along the cut edge when cut and subsequently handled. This disassembly occurs as the result of the untangling of the warp and weft yarns and is commonly known as raveling. Raveling significantly reduces the efficiency of subsequent article handling operations such as winding and unwinding and shipping and seriously reduces the strength of the fab
Bourdelais Robert P.
Kaminsky Cheryl J.
Neerbasch Steven J.
Singh Kalpana
Eastman Kodak Company
Leipold Paul A.
Schilling Richard L.
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