Stock material or miscellaneous articles – Structurally defined web or sheet – Discontinuous or differential coating – impregnation or bond
Reexamination Certificate
1999-10-22
2003-02-04
Kelly, Cynthia H. (Department: 1774)
Stock material or miscellaneous articles
Structurally defined web or sheet
Discontinuous or differential coating, impregnation or bond
C428S206000, C428S327000, C428S500000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06514598
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink jet recording sheet and method. More particularly, the present invention relates to an ink jet recording sheet usable for ink jet printer using a coloring pigment ink, and having an excellent colored image-receiving property, a high resistance of an ink receiving surface thereof to abrasion and a high water resistance of the coated layers, and a ink jet recording method using the recording sheet.
2. Description of the Related Art
Due to the technical progress in ink jet printers for preparing colored hard copies at a high speed, it has become possible to obtain clear images and excellent print quality. With this progress, an ink jet recording material having more enhanced properties has been demanded to further improve the quality and saturation of print and the appearance of the recording material and the images. Particularly, due to the enhancement of the printing speed, the resolution power and saturation of the images, further improved properties such as a high ink-drying rate, a high-absorption capacity, a uniform dot size and a blotting control are required, and thus various improved recording materials have been developed. Japanese Unexamined Publications No. 55-5,183 and No. 56-148,585 disclose an ink jet recording material having an ink receiving layer formed on a substrate material and comprising a porous inorganic pigment.
Also, the use of recent ink jet printers has expanded from the conventional document-printing to large width advertisement-printing, for example, poster-printing. Since the ink jet printer is advantageous in that the printing operation is very simple and no printing plate must be prepared before printing and thus the prints can be made even in a small numbers, necessary images or letters can be quickly printed in a necessary number in response to demand. Also, for the printing of advertisement sheets, a plotter which can print sheets having a large width is usually employed. The plotter is required to be capable of printing clear pictures or images which have a large width appropriate for advertisements, can be clearly observed even from for away and can maintain a high clarity of the pictures or images over a long period. Usually, the ink for the ink jet printing contains a dye as a coloring material. The dye exhibits a relatively poor resistance to oxidation due to ultra-violet rays or ozone and thus the color of the printed images is relatively easily faded when exposed to the atmosphere and sunlight over long period, and the appearance of the pictures or images is degraded. To solve the above-mentioned problem, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publications No. 9-157,559 and No. 9-132,740 disclose use of a pigment ink having a higher light fastness than that of the dye ink for the plotter. When the ink containing a dye, which is constituted by a low molecular weight compound, is employed, the dye molecules in the printed images are chemically and/or physically absorbed in, or bound to, the ink receiving layer. Compared with this, when the ink containing a pigment is used, the particles of the pigments are put or placed imagewise and side by side on the surface of the ink receiving layer. Therefore, when an ink jet recording sheet appropriate for the dye ink is printed with a pigment ink, and the resultant pigment images are rubbed with a finger, the pigment ink images are easily removed and thus are insuitable in practice. The pigment ink is advantageous in that the recorded pigment images exhibit excellent resistance to fading and water and thus have a superior durability to storage over a long period. However, in the conventional ink jet recording sheet, the ink receiving layer has a low resistance to water. Thus, when the printed ink jet recording sheet is exposed outdoors, the ink receiving layer of the ink jet recording sheet is deteriorated by rainwater or muddy water and thus cannot be employed over a long period.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is to provide an ink jet recording sheet, appropriately usable for printers or plotters using pigment inks, having an ink receiving layer with a high water resistance and capable of recording ink images good qualities, such as, for example, a high color density, a high clarity, a high resistance to rubbing, at a high recording speed.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an ink jet recording sheet, appropriate for applying pigment inks thereto, capable of recording thereon pigment images having high resistances to water and fading and a satisfactory clarity, and useful as a weather-resistant advertisement sheet outdoors and over a long period.
The ink jet recording sheet can be used for an ink jet recording method using a coloring pigment ink.
The above-mentioned objects can be attained by the ink jet recording sheet of the present invention which comprises
(A) a support sheet comprising a polymeric film;
(B) a lower ink receiving layer formed on the support sheet and comprising amorphous synthetic silica particles and a water-insoluble polymeric material, and
(C) an upper ink receiving layer formed on the lower ink receiving layer and comprising amorphous synthetic silica particles, a water-insoluble polymeric material and a silanol-modified polyvinyl alcohol,
the upper ink receiving layer exhibiting a Bekk smoothness of 5 to 40 seconds, determined in accordance with Japanese Industrial Standard P 8119-1976.
In the ink jet recording sheet of the present invention as defined above, preferably, in the lower ink receiving layer, the water-insoluble polymeric material is present in an amount of 20 to 50 parts by weight per 100 parts by weight of the total weight of the lower ink receiving layer; and, in the upper ink receiving layer, the water-insoluble polymeric material is present in an amount of 5 to 20 parts by weight and the silanol-modified polyvinyl alcohol is present in an amount of 10 to 40 parts by weight, each per 100 parts by weight of the total amount of the upper ink receiving layer.
In the ink jet recording sheet of the present invention, the upper ink receiving layer optionally further comprises a cationic polymeric material.
In the ink jet recording sheet of the present invention, optionally, an undercoat layer comprising a pigment and a water-insoluble polymeric material is formed between the support sheet and the lower ink receiving layer.
In the ink jet recording sheet of the present invention, the amorphous synthetic silica particles contained in the upper ink receiving layer preferably have an average particle size of 6 to 16 &mgr;m.
In the ink jet recording sheet of the present invention, the Bekk smoothness of the upper ink receiving layer is preferably in the range of from 5 to 15 seconds.
The ink jet recording method of the present invention comprises jetting imagewise ink droplets comprising a coloring pigment toward the upper ink receiving layers of the ink jet recording sheet of the present invention to record colored ink images in the upper and lower ink receiving layers of the ink jet recording sheet.
The ink jet recording method of the present invention optionally further comprises laminating the ink jet-recorded surface of the ink jet recording sheet with a transparent synthetic resin film.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
The ink jet recording sheet of the present invention suitable for the pigment ink jet printing comprises (A) a support sheet comprising a polymeric film; (B) a lower ink receiving layer formed on a surface of the support sheet and comprising amorphous synthetic silica particles and a water-insoluble polymeric material and (C) an upper ink receiving layer formed on the lower ink receiving layer, comprising amorphous synthetic silica particles, a water-insoluble polymeric material and a silanol-modified polyvinyl alcohol, and exhibiting a Bekk smoothness of 5 to 40 seconds, determined in accordance with JIS P 8119-1976.
In the ink jet recording sheet of the present invention, the lower and upper ink receiving la
Matsuura Satoshi
Sugiyama Naonobu
Totani Kazuo
Arent Fox Kintner Plotkin & Kahn
Kelly Cynthia H.
Oji Paper Co. Ltd.
Shewareged B.
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