Multicolor ink jet printing method

Details Multicolor ink jet printing method Multicolor ink jet printing method

1999-08-27

2002-01-08

Barlow, John (Department: 2853)

Incremental printing of symbolic information

Ink jet

Fluid or fluid source handling means

C347S096000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06336721

ABSTRACT:

The present invention relates to a colour ink jet printing method, to a set of inks, to ink jet printer cartridges, to substrates printed using the method and to an ink jet printer.
Ink jet printing is a non-impact printing technique which involves ejecting, thermally or by action of an oscillating piezo crystal, droplets of ink from one or more fine nozzles directly onto a substrate. The ink may be aqueous, solvent or hot melt based.
The printing of textiles is conventionally carried out by screen or roller printing using gravure engraved cylinders. The design to be printed has to be engraved on to a cylinder and each individual colour in a design requires the application of a separate screen with a colour premixed to the required shade. This is a long and slow process and it can take many months for a textile design to appear as a printed textile. Consequently, there is a demand for a printing process which enables new designs to be printed onto a textile quickly for proofing purposes and for small production runs.
Ink jet printing of textiles offers the potential to transfer a design to a textile much faster than traditional textile printing methods. However, conventional colour ink jet printers operate with a colouring system which uses three subtractive primary colours (Cyan, Magenta and Yellow) together with black, hereinafter referred to as CMYK. This colouring system only provides a limited range of colours compared with conventional textile printing methods.
The limited colour range provided by conventional colour ink jet printers also limits their applicability in other imaging technologies, particularly where high resolution images are required from digital cameras or when printing images from the Internet. These “photorealistic” applications require a wide range of colours to produce images of the same photographic quality as those prepared by conventional screen printing methods.
We have surprisingly found that the colour gamut of an ink jet printer is extended close to that obtained using conventional printing methods when a combination of inks containing dyes with specific calorimetric positions in colour space are used together with a CMYK colouring system in an ink jet printer.
According to a first aspect of the present invention there is provided a method for the coloration of a substrate comprising ink jet printing a first and second set of inks onto the substrate wherein:
(a) the first set of inks consists of one or more inks each of which independently contains a colorant selected from yellow, magenta, cyan and optionally black; and
(b) the second set of inks comprises one or more inks each of which independently contains a dye selected from:
a yellow dye of Formula (1) or salt thereof:
wherein:
X is a labile group or atom;
R
1
is alkyl or —NH
2
;
A is —NR
2
R
3
, —OR
2
or halogen;
R
2
is H or optionally substituted alkyl; and
R
3
is optionally substituted phenyl;
an orange dye of Formula (2) or salt thereof:
wherein:
R
4
is H or optionally substituted alkyl;
X is as hereinbefore defined;
B is —NR
5
R
6
, —OR
5
or halogen; and
R
5
and R
6
independently are H or optionally substituted alkyl;
a red dye of Formula (3) or salt thereof:
wherein:
X is as hereinbefore defined;
E is —NR
7
R
8
, —OR
7
or halogen;
each R
7
is independently H or alkyl; and
R
8
is optionally substituted aryl;
and a blue dye of Formula (4) or salt thereof:
wherein:
each X independently is as hereinbefore defined;
each L independently is an optionally substituted alkylene group;
each W independently is halogen or a group of the formula —OR
9
or —NR
10
R
11
;
R
9
is H or alkyl, R
10
is H or optionally substituted alkyl; and
R
11
is an optionally substituted aryl group.
FIG. 1
compares the colour gamut obtained using a first set of inks alone (i.e. cyan, magenta and yellow) with that obtained using a first and second set of inks according to the present invention. In
FIG. 1
the dots indicate the colour gamut from the first and second sets of inks. The crosses show the colour gamut from the first set of inks alone.
The coloration method of the present invention achieves a wide colour gamut by applying, in any combination, the inks from the hereinbefore defined first and second sets of inks to a substrate using an ink jet printer.
Preferably, the first set of inks consists of yellow, magenta and cyan inks and preferably also a black ink. Accordingly, in a preferred embodiment, the first set of inks consists of an ink containing a yellow colorant, an ink containing a magenta colorant, an ink containing a cyan colorant and an ink containing a black colorant.
The second set of inks comprises from one to four, preferably two to four and especially four inks each of which independently contains a dye selected from the hereinbefore defined dyes of the Formulae (1) to (4).
In a preferred embodiment, the second set of inks comprises an ink containing a dye of Formula (1), an ink containing a dye of Formula (2) an ink containing a dye of Formula (3) and an ink containing a dye of Formula (4).
In view of the above preferences, in an especially preferred embodiment of the present invention the first set of inks consists of an ink containing a yellow colorant, an ink containing a magenta colorant, an ink containing a cyan colorant and an ink containing a black colorant; and the second set of inks comprises an ink containing a dye of Formula (1), an ink containing a dye of Formula (2) an ink containing a dye of Formula (3) and an ink containing a dye of Formula (4).
As will be understood, the ink of the first set of inks which contains the yellow colorant is a different shade of yellow to that of the ink of the second set of inks which contains the yellow dye of Formula (1) so as to maximise the colour gamut available to the ink jet printer.
It is preferred that each of the inks in the first and second set of inks are a different colour.
The inks may be applied to the substrate in any combination, provided that at least one ink from each of the two sets is applied. The particular combination of inks selected from the first and second sets of inks will be chosen to achieve a desired colour at a specific position on the substrate. Therefore, a single ink from the first or second set of inks or any combination of inks from the first and second sets may be applied to a particular point on a substrate to achieve a specific colour at that point. By way of illustration, if a red corresponding to the colour of the red ink of the second set of inks was required at a particular point on the substrate, then that ink alone would be applied to that part of the substrate by the ink jet printer.
In the dyes of Formula (1), it is preferred that:
R
1
is C
1-4
-alkyl or —NH
2
, more preferably methyl, ethyl or —NH
2
and especially —NH
2
;
R
2
is H or optionally substituted C
1-6
-alkyl, more preferably H or C
1-4
-alkyl and especially H, methyl and ethyl;
R
3
is phenyl substituted by —COOH ,—SO
3
H or —OH, more preferably phenyl substituted by —SO
3
H; and
the group A is a group of the formula —NR
2
R
3
, —OR
2
or Cl, more preferably —NR
2
R
3
.
The dyes of Formula (1) may be prepared by methods analogous to those described in the art for other similar azo dyes, for example as described in EP 559 331A1, page 5, wherein the compound of formula (4) has the formula H-A.
In the dyes of Formula (2), it is preferred that:
R
4
is H or optionally substituted C
1-4
-alkyl, more preferably H, methyl or ethyl and especially methyl;
R
5
and R
6
are preferably each independently H or C
1-4
-alkyl, more preferably H; and
B is preferably —NR
5
R
6
, —OR
6
or Cl, more preferably —NR
5
R
6
and especially —NHR
6
.
The dyes of Formula (2) may be prepared by methods analogous to those described in the art for similar azo dyes, for example as described in GB 859,990, Example 1.
Preferred dyes of Formula (3) are those in which:
R
7
is H or C
1-4
-alkyl, more preferably H, methyl or ethyl and especially H;
R
8
is optionally substituted phenyl or naphthyl and especially phenyl optionally substituted by C
1-4
-

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