Compositions: coating or plastic – Coating or plastic compositions – Marking
Reexamination Certificate
2001-03-30
2003-11-11
Klemanski, Helene (Department: 1755)
Compositions: coating or plastic
Coating or plastic compositions
Marking
C106S031250, C106S031430, C106S031470, C106S031490
Reexamination Certificate
active
06645281
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a coloring composition containing oil-soluble dye aggregates, to an ink-jet ink, and to an ink jet recording method using the ink-jet ink, and in particular to a coloring composition that is suitable for aqueous ink, aqueous printing ink, information-recording ink and the like, as well as to an ink-jet ink and an ink jet recording method that are suitable for thermal, piezoelectric, electric field or acoustic ink jetting systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, materials for forming color images in particular are mainly used as image recording materials. Specifically, recording materials for an ink jet method, recording materials for a thermosensitive transfer method, recording materials for an electrophotographic method, silver halide photosensitive materials for a transfer method, printing inks, recording pens, and the like are often used. Further, in order to record or reproduce color images, color filters are used for image capturing elements such as CCDs in photographing equipment or for LCDs or PDPs in displays. In order to reproduce or record full-color images, coloring matter (dyes or pigments) of the so-called three additive colors or three subtractive colors are used for these color image recording materials or color filters. However, in the present situation, no fast dyes or pigments have been provided which have such absorption property that a preferable color reproduction range can be realized, and which can resist various operating conditions and environmental conditions. Therefore, improvement of dyes or pigments has been strongly demanded.
Ink jet recording methods have spread rapidly and are developing further since they enable low material cost, high-speed recording, low noise during recording, and simple color recording. Ink jet recording methods include a continuous method, in which droplets are made to fly continuously, and an on-demand method, in which droplets are made to fly in accordance with image information signals. Methods for discharging droplets include a method in which droplets are discharged by applying pressure using piezo elements; a method in which droplets are discharged by using heat to generate air bubbles in ink; a method using ultrasonic wave; and a method in which droplets are attracted by electrostatic force and thereby discharged. Further, water-based inks, oil-based inks, or solid (melting type) inks are used as inks for ink jet recording.
Of these inks, water-based inks are advantageous in view of ease of production and handling, smell, safety and so on. Thus, water-based inks are mainly used.
The reason why water-soluble dye is used in water-based inks is that a water-soluble dye has advantages of ease of production of the ink, superior preservation stability, good color hue and high color density. However, water-soluble dye has poor water resistance, so that bleeding is caused if recording is carried out with the ink on plain paper. As a result, problems that recording quality deteriorates remarkably and light resistance is poor arise.
Thus, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 56-157468, JP-A No. 4-18468, JP-A No. 10-110126 and JP-A No. 10-195355 suggest water-based inks containing a pigment or a dispersed dye in order to solve the above-mentioned problems.
The water resistance of these water-based inks is improved to some extent. However, it is difficult to say that water resistance is sufficient, and the following problems arise: a dispersant of the pigment or the dispersed dye in the water-based ink has insufficient preservation stability, such that an ink jet opening is easily blocked with the water-based ink; and the water-based inks in general have insufficient hue, and color reproducibility deteriorates because of the insufficient hue.
JP-A No. 58-45272, JP-A No. 6-340835, JP-A No. 7-268254, JP-A No. 7-268257 and JP-A No. 268260 suggest methods of causing a dye to be capsuled in urethane or polyester dispersant particles.
These methods however have the following problems: color reproducibility is insufficient because of insufficient color tone; and dispersion-stability and water resistance of the dye-capsuled polymer dispersant, when the dye is capsuled at a desired level, are not necessarily sufficient.
The following demands are made for dyes or pigments used in such inks for ink jet recording: having a good solubility or dispersibility in a solvent; enabling high density recording; having good color hue; having fastness to light, heat, and active gas (e.g., oxidizing gas such as NOx and ozone, and others such as SOx) in an environment; having excellent fastness to water and chemicals; exhibiting good fixing on image-receiving materials and hardly causing bleeding; having excellent preservation as inks; having no toxicity; having high purity; and being available at low cost.
However, it is extremely difficult to seek for dyes or pigments which satisfy these demands at a high level. Particularly, there is a strong demand for dyes or pigments which have good (cyan) color hue and have fastness to light, moisture, and heat. Further, when printing is carried out on an image-receiving material which has an ink-receiving layer containing inorganic pigment particles which are white and porous, among the aforementioned demands, there is a strong demand that dyes or pigments are fast to oxidizing gas, such as ozone, in an environment.
Dyes and pigments to be used in the aforementioned applications need to have the following characteristics in common: having preferable absorption property in terms of color reproducibility; having good fastness under environmental conditions used, for example, having good resistance to light, heat, moisture, and oxidizing gas such as ozone, and having good fastness to chemicals such as sulfurous acid gas; having a large molar absorbance coefficient; and the like.
In most cases, phthalocyanine-based or triphenylmethane-based dyes, which have excellent color hue and fastness to light, are used as cyan dyes. However, since these dyes do not have sufficient fastness to oxidizing gas, particularly ozone, improvement of these dyes has been demanded.
Typical frameworks for the cyan dyes used in inks for ink jet recording are phthalocyanine-based or triphenylmethane-based.
Phthalocyanine-based cyan dyes having resistance to ozone gas are disclosed in JP-A Nos. 3-103484, 4-39365, and 2000-303009. However, none of them achieves all of color hue, fastness to light, and fastness to oxidizing gas. In the present situation, products of cyan inks sufficiently satisfying the demands of the market have not yet been provided.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is to overcome the conventional problems described above, that is, to provide a color composition containing oil-soluble dye aggregates which have, as the three primary color dyes, absorption property contributing to excellent color reproducibility and have sufficient fastness to light, heat, moisture and active gas in an environment. Further, an object of the present invention is to provide various color compositions for image formation such as a printing ink for an ink jet, an ink sheet on a thermosensitive recording material, color toner for electrophotography, and a color filter used for a display such as a LCD or a PDP and for an image capturing element such as a CCD and CMOS. Moreover, an object of the present invention is to provide a coloring composition: which has no paper dependence; which has an excellent color formation efficiency/color tone (good color hue) when printing is effected on a paper which is arbitrarily selected; which has an excellent handling ability, odor ability, safety, water resistance, light resistance, fastness to active gas, particularly ozone, in an environment, or the like; which enables a high recording concentration/high image quality; and which is suitable for an aqueous ink for writing, an aqueous printing ink, an ink for information recording, or the like, because of using
Noro Masaki
Tateishi Keiichi
Yabuki Yoshiharu
Burns Doane , Swecker, Mathis LLP
Fuji Photo Film Co. , Ltd.
Klemanski Helene
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