Optimization of aqueous nano ceramic ink and printing characterization for digital ink-jet printing

Abstract

The advantage of ceramic ink-jet printing technology is the accurate and fast printing process of digital images for various products. For digital ink-jet printing applications, ceramic ink requires proper viscosity and surface tension, along with dispersion stability of the inorganic pigments. The purpose of this study is the formulation of an environment-friendly ceramic ink with a water-based system; using nano-sized CoAl2O4 pigment as a raw material, ink should have dispersion stability to prevent nozzle clogging during ink-jet printing process. In addition, the surface tension of the ceramic ink was optimized with the polysiloxane surfactant according to the surface tension requirement (20 - 45 mN/m) for ceramic ink-jet printing; by adjusting the viscosity with poly ethylene oxide, jetting behavior of the ceramic ink was investigated according to changes in the physical features through drop watcher measurement.