Stock material or miscellaneous articles – Structurally defined web or sheet – Discontinuous or differential coating – impregnation or bond
Reexamination Certificate
1998-09-15
2002-08-20
Hess, Bruce H. (Department: 1774)
Stock material or miscellaneous articles
Structurally defined web or sheet
Discontinuous or differential coating, impregnation or bond
Reexamination Certificate
active
06436513
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink jet recording material. More particularly, the present invention relates to an ink jet recording material having high gloss and color density of recorded images, and excellent water and light resistances.
2. Description of the Related Art
An ink jet recording system is employed to record colored ink images on a recording material by jetting imagewise ink droplets through nozzles at a high velocity to cohere the ink droplets on a surface of the recording material and is advantageous in that full color printing is easy and in that the printing noise is low. For this recording system, it is required that no clogging of the ink jet nozzles occurs, and the printed colored images exhibit bright colors. Therefore, the ink used for the ink jet recording system usually contains an acid dye or direct dye, and thus dyes having a high light fastness cannot be always selected at the present time.
As recording paper sheets for the ink jet recording system, woodfree paper sheets having an enhanced ink absorption and a coated paper prepared by coating a surface of the woodfree paper sheet with a porous pigment are widely available. However, these conventional paper sheets are disadvantageous in that when the ink images recorded on the conventional recording paper sheets are stored for long period, the ink images are significantly faded. Also, the conventional paper sheets are mostly mat-like ink jet recording sheets having a low surface gloss. Currently, in response to the rapid popularization of the ink jet printers and to the requirements for an improved quality of colored images, it is demanded to provide ink jet recording sheets having a high surface gloss, an excellent appearance and superior water and light resistances.
There are may reports concerning improvements of the light resistance of printed colored images. For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publications No. 57-87,988 and No. 57-87,989 disclose ink jet recording sheets to which an ultraviolet ray absorber or an antioxidant is added to improve the light resistance thereof. Also, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 63-166,586 discloses an ink jet recording sheet containing silica particles surface-treated with metal soaps, hydroxides, salts or oxides of a metal selected from Na, K, Ca, Mg, Al, Zn, Ba, Sr and Sn to enhance the light resistance of the recording sheet. Further, as reported in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 4-201,594, it is known that ultrafine particles of transition metal oxides are added to the ink receiving layer to support the inhibition effect of the ultraviolet ray absorbers on photodeterioration over long period. This type of the recording material exhibits a certain improvement in light resistance. However, this ink receiving layer is opaque, and a high gloss, a high color density of colored images, a high water resistance and a high light resistance cannot be obtained. This is probably because of the ink receiving layer formed from pigment particles having a particle size in the order of several micrometers. To impart a high gloss, a high color density of colored images and a high water resistance to the ink receiving layer, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 7-68,919 has reported that a support can be coated with a ultrafine pseudoboehmite sol porous ink receiving layer containing a mixture of an ultraviolet ray absorber or an antioxidant with a quencher. However, since the pseudoboehmite particles exhibit a low ink absorption capacity and a low ink-absorbing velocity, the above-mentioned ink jet recording sheet is unsuitable for high resolving power ink jet printers in which a large amount of ink is jetted to obtain a desired color density of colored images, and is unappropriate as a recording medium having a high gloss capable of recording photograph-like colored images.
The inventors of the present invention have attempted to provide ink jet recording materials having a high gloss, a high color density of colored images and a high ink absorption, and containing pigment secondary colloid particles having an average secondary particle size of 10 to 300 nm each consisting essentially of a plurality of primary particles having an average primary particle size of 3 to 40 nm and agglomerated with each other (EP-A-803374). The resultant recording material exhibits a high ink absorption and when ink jet printing is applied to the above-mentioned recording materials, the resultant colored images having excellent gloss, color density, water resistance and colored image quality compared to silver salt photographic images. However, this recording material is disadvantage in that when the resultant prints are stored for a long period, and especially when exposed to strong light, the colored images are faded or discolored.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is to provide an ink jet recording material capable of recording colored images having excellent color density, gloss, water resistance and light resistance.
The above-mentioned object can be attained by the ink jet recording material of the present invention which comprises a support and a one or more ink-receiving layers formed on the support, wherein at least one of the ink receiving layers comprises:
(1) fine colloid pigment particles selected from fine colloid amorphous silica secondary particles and fine colloid alumina silicate secondary particles having an average secondary particle size of 10 to 300 nm and each consisting essentially of a plurality of primary particles having an average primary particle size of 3 to 40 nm and agglomerated with each other; and
(2) an ultraviolet ray-absorber.
The above-mentioned ink receiving layer containing the fine colloid amorphous silica and/or alumina silicate particles and the ultraviolet ray absorber enables the colored images recorded on the resultant ink jet recording material to exhibit excellent color density, gloss, water resistance and light resistance. In a preferable embodiment of the present invention, the ink receiving layer containing the fine colloid amorphous silica and/or alumina silicate particles and the ultraviolet ray absorber further comprises an antioxidant.
The antioxidant contributes to enhancing the light resistance of the colored images recorded on the resultant ink receiving layer.
In the ink jet recording material of the present invention, the ink receiving layer preferably contains a cationic compound which contributes to fixing an anionic dye contained in the ink and to enhancing the water resistance and long term storage stability of the printed colored images.
Also, when the ultraviolet ray absorber comprises at least one member selected from organic ultraviolet ray-absorbing compounds, for example, benzotriazole compounds and inorganic ultraviolet ray-absorbing compounds, for example, zinc oxide, titanium dioxide, yttrium oxide and cerium oxide, the resultant ink receiving layer exhibit a significantly enhanced light resistance of colored images recorded thereon. Also, the above-mentioned ultraviolet ray absorbing compounds have a relatively good compatibility with the amorphous silica and alumina silicate particles. Therefore, a coating liquid containing the above-mentioned ultraviolet ray-absorbing compounds can be easily coated on a support to form an ink receiving layer.
In the ink jet recording material of the present invention, the ultraviolet ray absorber is preferably in the form of fine particles having an average particle size of, for example, 500 nm or less. The ultraviolet ray absorber may be pulverized together with the silica and/or alumina silicate. When the ultraviolet ray absorber particles having the above-mentioned particle size are used, the resultant ink receiving layer can exhibit a high gloss, color density, water resistance and light resistance of the recorded colored images, without decreasing the transparency of the ink receiving layer.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
In the ink jet recording material
Kitamura Ryu
Mukoyoshi Shun-ichiro
Ohshima Kazuaki
Takahashi Tomomi
Arent Fox Kintner Plotkin & Kahn
Grendzynski Michael
Hess Bruce H.
Oji Paper Co. Ltd.
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