Printing

•Printing is the process of applying color to fabric in defined areas to obtain the desired pattern.
•Textile printing is related to dyeing but, where as in dyeing , the whole fabric is uniformly covered with one color, in
printing one or more colors are applied in certain parts only.
Process of Printing
A typical Printing process involves:
 Preparation of print paste
 Printing of fabric
 Drying
 Fixation of dyestuff
 Washing-off
•Preparation of printing paste: Type of specific formulation used depends on the fibre, the colorant system used and
to some extent the type of printing machine.

•Printing of fabric: Dye or pigment paste is applied to the substrate using different techniques.

•Fixation (Drying): Immediate after printing, the fabric is dried and then the prints are fixed mainly with steam or hot
air.

•After-treatment (Washing):- This final operation consists in washing and drying the fabric (it is not necessary when
printing with pigments or with other particular techniques such as transfer printing).
•Preparation of print paste

The ingredients found in paste formulations includes:

•Dyes or pigments, thickeners, sequestering agents, dispersing agents (surfactants), water-

retaining agents (humectants), defoamers, catalysts, and hand modifiers.

Printing pastes are made up of four main components:

The coloring matter used (dyes or pigments)
The binding agent
The solvent
The auxiliaries
•Coloring matter: Either dyestuffs or pigments.
Dyes are in solution and become chemically or physically incorporated into the individual fibers.
The dyes used for printing mostly include vat, reactive, naphthol and disperse colours which have good fastness
properties.
Pigments are largely insoluble, so often organic solvents are used (such as benzene or toluene).
The pigmented printing paste must physically bind with the fabric, so must contain a resin( binder), which
holds the pigment in place on top of the fabric.
•Binder: Responsible for the fastness of the pigment prints during use. Binders are “self-crosslinking polymers”

•Thickener: To make viscous paste of dyes in water, a thickener is used. Thickening agents are starch derivatives,
flour, gum Senegal and gum arabic and albumin and sodium alginate.
•Wetting agent: It helps in obtaining a smooth paste of dyes without any lumps, for example: TRO turkey red oil.
•Defoaming agent: Formation of foam during print paste preparation and application is quite common but should be
avoided. Foams are generally gas filled bubbles surrounded by water. Foam may produce specky dyeing.
•Acid or alkali: Depending on the types of dyes used in printing, acid or alkali is used in the print paste.
•Hygroscopic agents: The function of hygroscopic agents is to take up sufficient amount of water (moisture)
during steaming to give mobility to the dyes to move into the fibre. Eg. Urea and Glycerin.

•Dispersing agent: Dispersing agents are necessary in the print paste to prevent aggregation of the dyestuff in the
highly concentrated pastes.
• Preservatives: Used to prevent the action of bacteria and fungus to make it dilute.
 Styles of Printing
The different styles of printing are-
 Direct style of printing.
 Discharge style of printing.
 Resist style of printing.
Direct style of printing:

•In this style the dyes are applied directly at the required places of the fabric, leaving the other portion white, by any
printing method like block printing, screen printing etc. so this style is called direct style of printing.
•Direct style involves transfer of paste containing dyes to the appropriate areas of the fabric. After drying the required
localized dyeing of the fibers occurs during steaming. Washing follows to remove the paste residue. In case of pigment
printing the pigments adhere to fabric surface with the cured binder film. No additional treatment is needed.
Discharge style of printing:

•Discharge means removal and discharging system means the process which can produce a white or colored
effect on a previously dyed ground.

•This discharging of color from previously dyed ground is carried out by a discharging agent which is actually a
oxidizing and reducing agent capable of destroying color by oxidation and reduction.

•The discharging agent’s are-

a. Oxidizing agent: Potassium chlorate, Na-chlorate

b. Reducing agent: Rongalite-c, Stannous chloride

•Discharge printing is a method where a dyed fabric is printed with discharging agents which selectively destroy
the dye. A white discharge is produced.

•
• There are two types of discharge style printing such as-

•White discharge

After dyeing and printing the discharging agent discharges the dye of printed area and leaves the dye of unprinted areas
unaffected. So a design is produced on the color ground.
Color discharge:

• Dye stuff which is strongly resistant to discharging agent are included in the printing paste along with discharging
agent. The discharging agent of print paste discharges the color at the printed area. At the same time the dye stuff of
print paste deposits and fixes itself on the ground. As a result of color discharge effect is obtained. In this way one or
more colors may be applied.
•Resist style printing:

• Resists means to hinder. In this process a chemical is applied to the fabric that will prevent the fixation of any coloring
agent employed afterwards on that area.

•It is one of the oldest printing style in which two resulting pattern can be obtained.

•In resist printing the fabric is first printed with an agent that resists either dye penetration or dye fixation. During
subsequent dyeing, only the areas free of the resist agent are colored.

There are two types of resist printing such as-

• White resist: if no color is added in the printing paste solution along with resist salt, after dyeing the printed areas
remains white. This is called white resist.
• Color resist: if any coloring material is added in the print paste along with resist salt, after dyeing the printed areas
contain the color added to print paste and the remaining areas will contain the color of the dye solution. As a result
colored resist effect is obtained
 Methods of Printing

There are five main methods of printing a fabric, these being the block, roller, screen, heat transfer and ink-jet methods.
The heat transfer method differs from the others in that it involves the transfer of color from the design printed on paper
through the vapor phase into the fibers of the fabric. With the other methods the dye or pigment is applied to the fabric
surface through a print paste medium.

Block printing method:

Wooden blocks are made by slicing logs of wood horizontally and the required designs are chiseled on to the hard,
smooth block surface. The carved out design on the block is smeared with thick dye paste and then stamped on to the
fabric transferring the design as cut in the block. Each separate colour will require a separate block. The process is
repeated till the design covers the fabric. Hand block printing is carried out as a cottage or small scale industry in India.
It is slow and expensive but is ideal for exclusive designs on limited quantities of fabrics.
 Stencil method

•A design shape is cut out of a piece of thin, hard non absorbent material and when this
is placed on a fabric and the colour brushed or sprayed in the cut out portions, the
design is traced on the fabric. An ordinary stencil is shown in figure.
Roller Printing
•Roller Printing also called engrave roller printing. It is a modern continuous printing technique.
In this method, a heavy copper cylinder (roller) is engraved with the print design by carving the
design into the copper. Designs with up to 16 colors present no problem in Roller Printing.

Main parts of Roller Printing:

• Color doctor
• Lint doctor
• Blankets
• Back grey
• Furnishers
• Color box / tray
• Color unit
Working Process of Roller Printing:
This machine has a main cylinder that is fitted with a large gear. In this printing, the print paste
is supplied from reservoirs to rotating copper rollers, which are engraved with the desired
design. These rollers contact a main cylinder roller that transports the fabric. By contacting the
rollers and the fabric the design is transferred to the fabric. As many as 16 rollers can be
available per print machine, each roller imprints one repeat of the design. As the roller spins, a
doctor blade in continuous mode scrapes the excess of paste back to the colour trough. At the
end of each batch the paste reservoirs are manually emptied into appropriate printing paste
batch containers and squeezed out. The belt and the printing gear (roller brushes or doctor
blades, squeegees and ladles) are cleaned up with water.
 Screen printing method
Printing of textile materials using a screen is either done manually or with the help of machines.

Manual screen printing

In manual screen printing the fabric to be printed is laid on a long table. A screen with length
slightly greater than the fabric width is fitted in a wooden frame. The design to be printed is
transferred to the screen (for each colour, there is a separate screen) and the space in the screen
not covered by the design is covered with an impermeable membrane so that the colouring
material can only pass through that part of the design which is to be in one colour.
A thick paste containing the colour (dye or pigment) prevents migration of the colour and the
paste holds the colour till it is fixed after printing and then the unwanted paste ingredients can
be removed. For this appropriate thickening agents are used which increase the viscosity of the
paste.

The printing paste is pressed through the screen with the help of a device having a rubber blade
called squeegee (Fig.11.5). The screen is moved one repeat and the process repeated. The
different colour screens follow and thus the whole length of the fabric is printed.
Semi-automated process
The manual process has been semi-automated by mounting the screen on a carriage and driving
the squeegee mechanically across the screen. In both hand and semiautomatic flat screen
printing the colours are printed one after another with time for drying between one colour and
the next. The dried fabric is removed from the table and stored for a while before fixing by dry
heat in the case of pigment printing and steaming or dry heat in case of reactive dye printing.

Automatic flat bed screen printing

In order to increase the speed of flat screen printing, it was imperative to devise a method of
printing all the colours simultaneously. This entails each colour application position being fixed
while the substrate moves. The colour is applied through the screens while the frame is
stationary. Flat bed screen printing machines where the fabric remains stationary and the screen
moves on a carriage have also been developed for the printing of silk. The entire operation is
controlled pneumatically. One such machine is shown in Fig.11.6.
Rotary screen printing
Unlike flat bed machines, in which the printing action is intermittent, continuous movement of
the fabric has been achieved in rotary screen printing machines (Fig.11.7). This is by moving
the screens along with the fabric while printing. The screens are cylindrical (Fig.11.8) and the
fabric also moves on a cylinder. However, these machines
are quite expensive
Heat Transfer Printing
Transfer printing techniques involve the transfer of a design from one medium to another. The most common form used
is heat transfer printing in which the design is printed initially on to a special paper, using conventional printing
machinery. The paper is then placed in close contact with the fabric and heated, when the dyes sublime and transfer to the
fabric through the vapor phase.

Ink Jet Printing

The most commonly used digital printing technology for textile printing is ink jet. The ink jet process is a computer to
print technology in which ink is sprayed from nozzles, which means that no printing master is needed and the imaging is
done directly onto the substrate.

Ink jet technologies could be divided in two main groups: Continuous Ink Jet (CIJ) and Drop-on-Demand Ink Jet (DOD).
Continuous ink jet is typically subdivided in binary deflection and multi-deflection category. On the other hand, Drop on
Demand Ink Jet can be subdivided into the process variations of thermal, piezo and electrostatic ink jet.The difference
between this processes is that in the continuous ink jet, only a part of the continuously generated flow
of small ink drops is directed onto the substrate during printing in accordance with the image signal. The unprinted
droplets are collected and returned for reuse. In a drop on demand ink jet processes, drops of ink are only generated if the
information to be printed requires them.