Stock material or miscellaneous articles – Structurally defined web or sheet – Discontinuous or differential coating – impregnation or bond
Reexamination Certificate
1999-06-16
2003-05-20
Hess, Bruce H. (Department: 1774)
Stock material or miscellaneous articles
Structurally defined web or sheet
Discontinuous or differential coating, impregnation or bond
C347S105000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06565950
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording medium suitable for ink-jet recording and in particular for output of a photographic image, a method for producing the recording medium, an image forming method utilizing the recording medium, an alumina dispersion and a method for producing the alumina dispersion.
The ink-jet recording system comprising ejecting minute ink droplets by various principles and depositing such the ink droplets onto a recording medium, such as paper to conduct recording an image or a character, is becoming rapidly popular in recent years in various applications in recording various images including the information processing equipment, because of features such as a high speed, a low noise level, ease of multi color image formation, flexibility in the recorded pattern, absence of necessity for image development or fixation etc. Also, the image formed by the multi-color ink-jet recording system is comparable in image quality to the multi-color printing with printing plates or the print by color photography, and is being widely used in the field of full-color image recording as it is less expensive than the ordinary multi-color printing or photographic printing when the number of prints is low.
2. Related Background Art
In the ink-jet recording system, the recording apparatus and method have been improved along with the improvement in the recording characteristics such as increase in the recording speed and in the image definition and transition toward full-color recording, but requirements of a higher level are being requested also for the recording medium. For meeting such requirements, there have been proposed recording media of various forms. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 55-5830 discloses an ink-jet recording paper provided with an ink absorbing coated layer on a substrate, and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 55-51583 discloses a configuration employing amorphous silica as the pigment in the coated layer.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,879,166 and 5,104,730, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. 2-276670, 3-215082 and 3-281383 and a patent application of the present inventors have proposed a recording sheet having an ink receiving layer employing alumina hydrate having a pseudo boehmite structure.
Also, the recording media employing zirconium compound are being increasingly proposed in recent years. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 4-7189 discloses a method for producing a recording medium provided with an ink receiving layer containing porous pigment and zirconium compound. Also, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. 5-85033, 5-85034 and 5-85085 have proposed a recording medium having an intermediate layer between the ink receiving layer and the substrate, and disclosed an example of employing a zirconium-containing crosslinking agent in the intermediate layer. Also, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 6-32046 proposes a recording medium provided with an ink receiving layer containing specified amounts of amorphous silica, a vinyl alcohol copolymer containing silanol radicals and a zirconium compound. Furthermore, U.S. Pat. No. 4,732,786 discloses a recording medium provided with an ink receiving layer containing specified amounts of a pigment, a binder, an insolubilized hydrophilic polymer and a zirconium compound as polyvalent cation.
However, the recording media mentioned above can improve the coating strength, but they are still insufficient in the ink absorbing ability, resolution or gradation sufficient for reproducing the image quality comparable to that of the silver halide-based photography, and are deficient in a water fastness and an image preservability.
Also, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 9-76628 discloses a recording medium provided with an ink receiving layer containing an alumina hydrate subjected to surface treatment with a zirconium-containing coupling agent. However, further improvement in the performance is desired even for such recording medium, for use on the recent photo ink-jet printer that can output a high-quality image comparable to that of the silver halide-based photography.
The photo ink-jet printer produces the density gradation by superposing a low concentration ink or inks having different concentrations in order to obtain smooth gradation which is important in producing a photographic image. For this reason, the amount of ink deposited per unit area is significantly larger than that in the conventional ink-jet printer. On the other hand, in order to enhance a permeability of ink for enabling image output on plain paper, there is added a large amount of surfactant in the ink solvent or there is employed a highly hydrophilic dye. For this reason, even with the use of alumina hydrate having a high dyeing ability, the ink tends to bleed in an area of a high ink deposition amount, thus deteriorating the resolution of the image or causing migration of the dye after the image recording.
On the other hand, there have been known various methods for producing an alumina hydrate dispersion. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. 54-116398, 55-23034 and 55-27824 disclose a method for preparing alumina hydrate gel by reacting a basic aluminum salt with an alkali or an acid or reacting an acidic aluminum salt with an alkali and defloculating the obtained gel to form an alumina hydrate dispersion. Also, a method of hydrolyzing aluminum alkoxide to prepare alumina hydrate and deflocculating it with an acid to obtain alumina hydrate dispersion is proposed, for example, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. 57-88074, 62-56321, 4-275917, 6-64918, 7-10535, 7-267633, U.S. Pat. No. 2,656,321 and Am. Ceramic Soc. Bull., 54, p. 289 (1975).
However, for obtaining an alumina hydrate dispersion with a deflocculant such as acid, it is necessary to add a large amount of deflocculant as described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 62-56321. If the amount of deflocculant is too little, there will be required a longer time for deflocculation or there will result insufficient deflocculation. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 7-10535 discloses a method of executing deflocculation at a high temperature and under pressure in order to reduce the amount of the deflocculant and the time required for deflocculation, but such deflocculation at high temperature and under pressure requires a pressurized reactor. Also the use of acid at high temperature and under pressure results in various limitations in manufacture such as a reduced service life of the reactor.
Furthermore, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 6-064919 discloses a method of adding an acid to alumina hydrate and applying an ultrasonic treatment to obtain a sol, but such method not only requires a special facility, thus involving limitations in the manufacture, but also results in difficulty in deflocculation and dispersion and in a short pot life at a high solid concentration.
Also, as described in Japanese Patent Application No. 7-10535, a gel tends to be produced at a high solid concentration in case a large amount of acid is used for deflocculation, so that an alumina hydrate dispersion of a high concentration has been extremely difficult to obtain.
The alumina sol of a high concentration and a low viscosity has been proposed in various forms such as a form containing a water-soluble aliphatic amino acid or a lactam derived therefrom (refer to Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 61-283335), a form containing an acid amide (refer to Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 1-171633), or a form with a defined content of cations other than a hydrogen ion (refer to Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 8-295509). However, even the dispersion of such forms shows insufficient stability when a water-soluble or water-dispersible polymer is mixed for obtaining a binding property or a shaping property for the purpose of forming a coating material, paint, bulk ceramics or catalyst carrier, and there cannot be obtained
Kondo Yuji
Santo Tsuyoshi
Tomioka Hiroshi
LandOfFree
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