Aqueous Ink with Surface-Treated Titanium Oxide for Fixability
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing aqueous inks for ink jet recording, particularly those using titanium oxide, face challenges in achieving sufficient fixability, hiding property, and scratch resistance due to the limitations of increasing ink application amount or titanium oxide content, which often result in degraded ejection properties and image quality.
Innovation Solution
An aqueous ink formulation that includes titanium oxide particles with alumina and silica surface treatment, combined with resin particles and a specific ratio of water-soluble organic solvent, optimized to satisfy specific mass content relations, enhancing light scattering and dispersion stability for improved fixability, hiding property, and scratch resistance.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Quantity of substance
If the ink application amount is increased to improve hiding property, then the hiding property is improved, but the drying time increases which degrades fixability
Solution Approach 1:
The invention changes the chemical composition parameters of the ink by incorporating specific water-soluble organic solvents (glycol ethers and glycol ester) with controlled content ratios, and by using titanium oxide particles with specific surface treatment. This allows achieving sufficient hiding property with reduced ink application amount while maintaining acceptable drying time and fixability.
2Quantity of substance
If the content of titanium oxide in the ink is increased to improve hiding property, then the hiding property is improved, but the ejection properties deteriorate due to instability of dispersion
Solution Approach 1:
The invention uses water-soluble organic solvents (glycol ethers and glycol ester) as intermediary substances that mediate between the titanium oxide particles and the aqueous medium. These solvents improve the wetting and dispersion of titanium oxide particles with large specific gravity, enabling stable ink formulation with high titanium oxide content (10-30 mass%) while maintaining good ejection properties.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention creates a composite ink system combining titanium oxide particles (with specific surface treatment), water-soluble organic solvents (glycol ethers and glycol ester), and other ink components in optimized ratios. This composite formulation achieves both high hiding property and stable ejection performance by synergistically combining multiple materials with complementary functions.
3Stability of the object's composition
If the content of water-soluble organic solvent is increased to improve dispersion stability, then the dispersion stability is improved, but the drying time increases which degrades fixability
Solution Approach 1:
The invention optimizes the types and ratios of water-soluble organic solvents, specifically using a combination of glycol ethers (10-30 mass%) and glycol esters (5-20 mass%). This specific parameter configuration achieves adequate dispersion stability for titanium oxide particles while controlling the drying time to maintain acceptable fixability, resolving the trade-off between these two properties.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The ink achieves enhanced fixability, hiding property, and scratch resistance by optimizing the mass ratios of titanium oxide, resin particles, and water-soluble organic solvent, ensuring stable dispersion and improved ejection properties, thereby producing high-quality images.
Implementation Method 1
the titanium oxide particle includes titanium oxide having a surface at least a portion of which is covered with alumina and silica
Implementation Method 2
in order to achieve stable dispersion of titanium oxide having a large specific gravity, adjustments of the contents of the water-soluble organic solvent, the dispersant and the like in the ink
Data Source
AI summary
An aqueous ink for ink jet recording includes a titanium oxide particle, a resin particle and a water-soluble organic solvent. The titanium oxide particle includes titanium oxide having a surface at least a portion of which is covered with alumina and silica and, in the aqueous ink, a content of the titanium oxide particle (T (% by mass)), a content of the resin particle (E (% by mass)) and a content of the water-soluble organic solvent (S (% by mass)) satisfy relations of a formula (1) and a formula (2) below:E/T≥0.5(1)0.3≤S/(T+E)≤0.7.(2)