Stock material or miscellaneous articles – Ink jet stock for printing – Particles present in ink receptive layer
Reexamination Certificate
2001-01-26
2004-02-10
Hess, B. Hamilton (Department: 1774)
Stock material or miscellaneous articles
Ink jet stock for printing
Particles present in ink receptive layer
C428S032250, C427S152000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06689432
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink jet recording material capable of recording ink images having a high color density, a high clarity, a high water-resistance, a high resistance to blotting of ink images due to a high humidity and optionally a high resistance to fading, and having a high surface smoothness and a high gloss. The ink jet recording material of the present invention enables sharp ink images, comparable to those of silver-salt photographic images, to be recorded thereon.
2. Description of the Related Art
The ink jet recording system is a system for recording ink images by jetting ink droplets, corresponding to images to be recorded, toward a recording medium to cause the jetted ink droplets to be directly absorbed, imagewise, into the recording medium.
An ink jet printer can easily effect multi-color recording on the recording medium and thus is now rapidly becoming popular, for home use and for office use, as a text- or picture-outputting machine for computers.
The multi-color recording system using the ink jet recording system can rapidly and accurately form complicated images and the quality (color density and clarity) of the recorded colored images is comparable to the quality of color images formed by a conventional printing system using a printing plate or by conventional color photography. In the case where the ink jet recording system is utilized for a small number of prints, the ink jet recording system is advantageous in that the cost for recording is lower than the printing cost of a conventional printing system or a conventional photographic printing system. The progress in the accuracy and color quality of the printer and an increase in the printing speed of the printer require the printing media to have an enhanced performance. High gloss is required and also, since the ink for the ink jet recording system contains a large amount of water or another liquid medium, particularly a liquid medium having a high boiling temperature to prevent a blocking of the ink jet nozzle heads and, after printing, the coloring material such as a dye exists together with the liquid medium for a long period in the recording layer, the conventional recording material is disadvantageous in that the ink images are blotted with the lapse of time and the stabilization of the color tone of the printed ink images is difficult.
To enhance the resistance of ink images printed on an image recording stratum to moisture, a plurality of attempts have been made. For example, in one attempt, a uniform aqueous solution or an emulsion latex of a cationic polymer is added to the ink or, in another attempt, fine solid particles having a cationic surface charge (for example, alumina particles or cation-modified silica particles are added to the ink.
For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 60-46,288 discloses an ink jet recording method using a recording material comprising an ink containing a specific dye and a polyamine, etc. Also, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 63-162,275 discloses an ink jet recording material comprising a cationic polymer and a cationic surfactant coated on or impregnated in a support. Further, use of fine inorganic cationic particles, for example, alumina or cation-modified silica particles is known, for example, from Japanese Examined Patent Publication No. 4-19,037 and Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 11-198,520. The attempts mentioned above relatively greatly contributed to enhancing the water resistance of the printed ink images. However, the enhancing effect on the resistance to blotting of the ink images due to moisture is insufficient and, particularly, substantially no effect was found on stabilization of the color tone of the printed ink images within a short time.
To solve the above-mentioned problems, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 10-157,277 discloses an attempt in which a two-layered image recording stratum is formed on an opaque support, the opaqueness of an under layer is made higher than the opaqueness of the upper layer, and a white-coloring pigment is contained in the under layer. In this attempt, since the upper layer is formed transparent and the under layers is formed opaque, the portion of the dye of the ink absorbed in the under layer which dye may blot in the under layer, is hidden from sight in the opaque layer and thus cannot be recognized through the upper layer. In this attempt, a certain degree of effect is recognized, but the problems are not completely solved. Particularly, the dye absorbed and blotted in the under layer further spread into the upper layer with the lapse of time and as a final result, an ink image-blotting phenomenon appears. Also, by this attempt alone, it is difficult to stabilize the color tone of the printed ink images within a short time. Particularly, for a specific use in which the stabilization of the color tone within a short time is required, for example, the use of checking the color tone of ink images formed by an ink jet recording system for the purpose of proofreading of colored images of prints, the above-mentioned recording stratum is unsatisfactory.
Currently, since digital cameras have become popular and ink jet printers using a photo-ink, capable of recording images having a high accuracy and having a low price are available, a demand of recording material capable of recording thereon ink images having a high quality comparable to that of silver-salt photographic images is increased. Since the printers can record full-colored ink images at high speed with a high quality and accuracy, the recording material for the printers are also required to provide with further enhanced properties. Particularly, to use the ink jet recording system in place of the silver-salt photographic printing system, the ink jet recording materials are strongly required to have a high ink-absorbing rate, a high ink absorption capacity, a high roundness of dots, a high density of colored images, and high surface gloss and a smoothness comparable to those of silver salt photographic printing sheets.
To realize the high clarity and color density of the ink images comparable to the silver-salt photographic image, the inventors of the present invention provided, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 9-286,165, an ink jet recording material having at least one ink receiving layer comprising fine silica particles having an average primary particle size of 3 to 40 nm and an average secondary particle size of 10 to 300 nm, and water-soluble resin. The fine silica particles contribute to enhancing the color-forming property of the ink and the clarity and brightness of the printed images.
Also, the use of the fine silica particles enables the printed images to exhibit a high color density and a high quality (clarity). However, since the silica particles exhibit an anionic property, the resultant images formed from a cationic dye ink exhibit an unsatisfactory water resistance. Also, a cationization treatment of silica particles is difficult. Further, the silica particle-containing recording stratum is disadvantageous in that the resultant smoothness and gloss thereof, without a gloss-providing treatment, are insufficient.
In another invention disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 10-193,776, an ink jet recording material having an ink-receiving and recording layer comprising fine silica particles having an average primary particle size of 20 &mgr;m or less and a hydrophilic binder, is provided. Particularly, in this recording material, when fumed silica particles are used as the fine silica particles, a high gloss of the recording stratum can be obtained, and the ink exhibits a good color-forming property. However, the resultant gloss of the recording material is lower than that of the silver-salt photographic material. Also, the fumed silica particles are difficult to cationalization process. Further, the fumed silica particles are disadvantageous in that since the thixotropic property thereof is too high an
Endo Eriko
Kitamura Ryu
Mukoyoshi Shun-ichiro
Ohshima Kazuaki
Takahashi Tomomi
Armstrong Kratz Quintos Hanson & Brooks, LLP
Hess B. Hamilton
Oji Paper Co. Ltd.
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