Stock material or miscellaneous articles – Ink jet stock for printing – Particles present in ink receptive layer
Reexamination Certificate
2001-12-12
2004-02-10
Schwartz, Pamela R. (Department: 1774)
Stock material or miscellaneous articles
Ink jet stock for printing
Particles present in ink receptive layer
C428S032310, C428S032290, C428S032370, C428S032380, C347S105000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06689431
ABSTRACT:
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
Reference is made to commonly assigned, co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/017,423 by Gallo et al., filed of even date herewith entitled “Ink Jet Printing Method”.
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to an ink jet recording element. More particularly, this invention relates to an ink jet recording element containing a multiplicity of particles.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In a typical ink jet recording or printing system, ink droplets are ejected from a nozzle at high speed towards a recording element or medium to produce an image on the medium. The ink droplets, or recording liquid, generally comprise a recording agent, such as a dye or pigment, and a large amount of solvent. The solvent, or carrier liquid, typically is made up of water, an organic material such as a monohydric alcohol, a polyhydric alcohol or mixtures thereof.
An ink jet recording element typically comprises a support having on at least one surface thereof an ink-receiving or image-forming layer, and includes those intended for reflection viewing, which have an opaque support, and those intended for viewing by transmitted light, which have a transparent support.
It is well known that in order to achieve and maintain photographic-quality images on such an image-recording element, an ink jet recording element must:
Be readily wetted so there is no puddling, i.e., coalescence of adjacent ink dots, which leads to non-uniform density
Exhibit no image bleeding
Exhibit the ability to absorb high concentrations of ink and dry quickly to avoid elements blocking together when stacked against subsequent prints or other surfaces
Exhibit no discontinuities or defects due to interactions between the support and/or layer(s), such as cracking, repellencies, comb lines and the like
Not allow unabsorbed dyes to aggregate at the free surface causing dye crystallization, which results in bloom or bronzing effects in the imaged areas
Have an optimized image fastness to avoid fade from contact with water or radiation by daylight, tungsten light, or fluorescent light
An inkjet recording element that simultaneously provides an almost instantaneous ink dry time and good image quality is desirable. However, given the wide range of ink compositions and ink volumes that a recording element needs to accommodate, these requirements of ink jet recording media are difficult to achieve simultaneously.
Ink jet recording elements are known that employ porous or non-porous single layer or multilayer coatings that act as suitable image receiving layers on one or both sides of a porous or non-porous support. Recording elements that use non-porous coatings typically have good image quality but exhibit poor ink dry time. Recording elements that use porous coatings typically contain colloidal particulates and have poorer image quality but exhibit superior dry times.
While a wide variety of different types of porous image-recording elements for use with ink jet printing are known, there are many unsolved problems in the art and many deficiencies in the known products which have severely limited their commercial usefulness. A major challenge in the design of a porous image-recording layer is to be able to obtain good quality, crack-free coatings with as little non-particulate matter as possible. If too much non-particulate matter is present, the image-recording layer will not be porous and will exhibit poor ink dry times.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,912,071 relates to a recording medium comprising a substrate and a porous layer formed on the substrate wherein the porous layer comprises water-insoluble resin particles preferably having a core/shell structure. However, there is no disclosure in this reference of the use of a combination of water-insoluble, cationic, polymeric particles and particles having a core/shell structure. An element with an image-receiving layer that does not contain water-insoluble, cationic resin particles would not have good image quality. An element with an image-receiving layer that does not contain particles having a core/shell structure would exhibit cracking.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,099,956 relates to a recording medium comprising a support with a receptive layer coated thereon. The receptive layer comprises a water insoluble polymer, which is preferably, a copolymer comprising a styrene core with an acrylic ester shell. However, there is no disclosure in this reference of the use of a combination of water-insoluble, cationic, polymeric particles and particles having a core/shell structure. An element with an image-receiving layer that does not contain water-insoluble, cationic resin particles would not have good image quality. An element with an image-receiving layer that does not contain particles having a core/shell structure would exhibit cracking.
It is an object of this invention to provide a porous ink jet recording element that has instant dry time when used in ink jet printing. It is another object of this invention to provide a porous recording element that has good coating quality, especially reduced cracking. It is another object of this invention to provide an inkjet recording element that exhibits good image quality after printing.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
These and other objects are achieved in accordance with the invention, which comprises an ink jet recording element comprising a substrate having thereon a porous image-receiving layer comprising
a) organic particles encapsulated with an organic polymer having a Tg of less than about 100° C.; and
b) water-insoluble, cationic, polymeric particles.
The ink jet recording element of the invention has good coating and image quality when used in ink jet printing.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
Any organic particle may be used to prepare the encapsulated particles employed in the invention. In a preferred embodiment, the organic particles are polymeric particles, such as particles made from poly(methylmethacrylate), poly(styrene), poly(p-methylstyrene), poly(t-butylacrylamide), poly(styrene-co-methylmethacrylate), poly(styrene-co-t-butylacrylamide), poly(methylmethacrylate-co-t-butylacrylamide), and homopolymers derived from p-cyanophenyl methacrylate, pentachlorophenyl acrylate, methacrylonitrile, isobomyl methacrylate, phenyl methacrylate, acrylonitrile, isobomyl acrylate, p-cyanophenyl acrylate, 2-chloroethyl acrylate, 2-chloroethyl methacrylate, 2-naphthyl acrylate, n-isopropyl acrylamide, 1-fluoromethyl methacrylate, isopropyl methacrylate, and 2-hydroxypropyl methacrylate. In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the core polymer is derived from a styrene-containing monomer or an acrylate-containing monomer, such as poly(methylmethacrylate), poly(styrene), poly(p-methylstyrene), poly(t-butylacrylamide) or poly(styrene-co-methylmethacrylate). In another preferred embodiment of the invention, the particle size of the inorganic particles is from about 5 nm to about 1000 nm. In yet another preferred embodiment of the invention, the Tg of the organic particle is at least about 60° C., preferably from about 60° C. to about 150° C.
The encapsulated particles used in the invention may be prepared in a preferred embodiment by polymerizing one or more monomers in the presence of the organic particles. Useful polymerization techniques can be found in “Emulsion Polymerization and Emulsion Polymers”, edited by P. A. Lovell and M. S. El-Aassar, John Wiley and Sons, 1997. Another embodiment relates to preparing the encapsulated particles by adsorbing polymer onto the surface of the organic particles. Another embodiment relates to preparing the encapsulated particles by forming chemical bonds between the organic particles and the polymer either before or after it is formed from the monomer.
The organic polymer used for encapsulation of the organic particles employed in the invention has a Tg of less than about 100° C., preferably from about −50° C. to about 65° C. Methods for determining Tg values of organic polymers are described in “Introduction to Physical Polymer Science”, 2nd Edition by L. H. Sperling, publis
Gallo Elizabeth A.
Sadasivan Sridhar
Wang Xiaoru
Cole Harold E.
Eastman Kodak Company
Konkol Chris P.
Schwartz Pamela R.
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