In the production of ceramic products, inkjet printing has many advantages that ordinary printing cannot achieve, and can solve the problem of high labor costs. Therefore, in just a few years, the proportion of inkjet printing products has reached over 80%, and within a few years, the goal of completely replacing other printing can be achieved. Of course, in order for inkjet printing to completely replace ordinary printing methods, it is necessary to improve the performance and expand the scope of use of equipment and raw ink, otherwise everything is just empty talk.

It has to be said that current inkjet printing still has many limitations! For example, the dark colored products produced may appear blurry when printed! I can’t see any patterns or patterns at all, like a puddle of ink stains. What should I do?

before                                                                                           after

1、 Cause analysis
The grayscale of inkjet files for dark products is relatively high (usually above 60%). Due to the limitation of inkjet ink’s color development ability, the amount of ink used is too large, and the ink printed on the glaze cannot be quickly dried, resulting in a “paste”. To achieve ideal clarity and layering in inkjet printing patterns, in addition to hardware support such as inkjet printer heads, the ink color and glaze performance (color, turbidity, and drying speed) must be perfectly matched. It can be said that, under other constant conditions, the faster the ink drying speed after inkjet printing, the clearer the pattern presented after firing.

2、 Solution measures
1. Install surface glaze drying equipment on the glaze line to improve the drying speed of inkjet printing. Due to the limitations of equipment placement on the glaze production line, some manufacturers only borrow screen printing drying equipment (usually between several screen printing machines, behind inkjet printing machines), and the effect is not ideal. Generally, in order to make inkjet ink dry quickly, it is best to install the drying equipment before the inkjet printer, but it is necessary to eliminate the water vapor on the glaze before entering the printer to reduce the impact on the nozzle.
2. Reduce the amount of glaze applied to the base and surface glazes. In terms of process adjustment, this is the simplest and most effective method. Reducing the base and surface glaze means reducing the water collection time of the surface glaze. The drying time after inkjet printing will naturally be shortened, provided that the texture of the glaze surface is ensured. Ceramic gloss products can have a greater reduction on the base glaze (after all, dark tiles do not need to worry about water permeability), while the surface glaze depends on the flatness of the glaze after firing; Other matte products can reduce the amount of glaze applied to both the base and surface at the same time.
3. Slow down the speed of inkjet printing (such as from 24 meters/second to 15 meters/second, etc.). Although slowing down the speed may affect the production output, considering the small proportion of dark products, this is still very feasible, and from the perspective of debugging effect, it is also an effective method.
4. Improve ink formula and increase ink drying speed. Improving ink is something that ceramic companies cannot do, but as an ink manufacturer, we must fully consider it, after all, the production of dark colored products is inevitable.
5. Use ink with strong coloring ability. Ink has strong coloring ability, so its ink usage is naturally reduced, and its drying speed is fast, which can reduce the problem of “paste”. At present, some manufacturers are producing packaging ink to solve similar problems, hoping to mature and stabilize it as soon as possible.

Summary: In order to avoid dark products becoming “blurry”, adjusting the above measures simultaneously will have a more significant effect. Of course, when time permits, adjustments can be made to the raw material formula, base and surface glaze formula, or process to accelerate the water collection speed of the base glaze as much as possible. This is of great help for the clarity of the pattern of dark inkjet printed products.

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