Preparation and characterisation of ink formulations for jet printing on nylon carpet

Purpose ‐ The purpose of this paper is to prepare and characterise various ink formulations for inkjet printing on nylon 66 carpet. Design/methodology/approach ‐ Various ink formulations were prepared using CI Acid Red 57, synthetic thickeners (BYK425 and BYK420), ethylene glycol, diethylene glycol, isopropanol with auxiliaries. The inks were characterised for their rheological, wetting and storage stability properties. The inks were jetted using a Printos P16 drop-on-demand jet print-head onto nylon 66 carpet materials. The printed images were characterised using an ImageXpert system. Findings ‐ It is found that the inks containing the synthetic thickeners at the optimum ratio give good printing and image properties, such as optical density, drop size, and depth of penetration into the substrate at pH 4-5. The optimised ink formulation is found to have good storage stability. Research limitations/implications ‐ The study focuses on ink formulations based on CI Acid Red 57. Ink formulations based on other colorants could also be studied in order to assess the applicability of the ink formulation system found for other colorants. Practical implications ‐ The ink formulations developed could find use in industrial scale printing. Originality/value ‐ Low cost ink formulations for printing of nylon carpets are novel.