Compared with the traditional printing technology, the digital ink-jet printing technology for textiles has the following significant advantages:
- The printing equipment has high precision, which can reach 2880dpi, while the traditional screen printing can only reach 200dpi.
Inkjet printing products have rich colors, natural transition, and clear patterns. The great improvement in printing accuracy makes it possible to produce high-definition printed textiles so that designers can break through the limitations of traditional fabric printing technology and give full play to their imagination.
- There is no need for plate making. The batch is flexible, not limited by pattern, and the image can be modified at will, which can not only realize single-piece production but also carry out mass production.
Traditional printing requires plate making, color matching, and proofing in advance. The more colors of the pattern, the more plates required, and the longer the preparation time; moreover, the smaller the production batch, the higher the production cost and the slower the delivery speed. Therefore, the traditional printing method is not suitable for single-piece or small batch production according to customer requirements, and it is difficult to meet the personalized needs of modern consumers.
- Low energy consumption, low pollution, and low noise.
Inkjet printing does not use water and color paste in the process of inkjet printing. The ink used in inkjet printing is “distributed on-demand” by the computer. There is no waste water and low noise in the whole process of inkjet printing. It is really clean production technology. Traditional printing needs to wash the pattern, and the printed fabric needs a lot of washing and soaping to remove the floating color, which not only wastes dyes, additives, water resources, and energy but also causes serious pollution.
- The combination of inkjet printing digital technology and network technology will bring a new management system and marketing mode.
Textile inkjet printing technology covers a small area, which can be printed in offices and homes and can realize personalized e-commerce consumption through the Internet. Consumers can transmit their own designs or even their own designs, personal data, and requirements to manufacturers through the Internet. Manufacturers can arrange production at any time and send products to consumers. However, traditional printing requires a special drafting room, plate-making room, spacious printing workshop, and washing post-treatment workshop. The cost of a production plant is high and the investment is large.
These unique advantages of textile digital ink-jet printing have fundamentally innovated the concept of traditional textile production and management, realized the green production of textile printing, organically combined the traditional textile industry with modern high-tech, and made it develop from labor-intensive to technology-intensive, which has greatly promoted the upgrading of the textile industry and improved the technical level. Therefore, people in the industry at home and abroad agree that the digital ink-jet printing technology of textiles is one of the key technologies for the technological revolution of the dyeing and finishing industry in the 21st century.
Although ink-jet printing has many advantages as mentioned above, its disadvantages of slow printing speed, color, and high equipment price are still the main obstacles restricting the large-scale popularization and application of this technology. In order to solve these bottleneck problems, many international scientists have joined the ranks of R & D of ink-jet printing technology. At present, many key problems have been gradually broken through.