For people who are doing sublimation printing business, they are very familiar with the sublimation ink. But do they really know sublimation ink well? I think the answer may not 100% yes. There is an old saying in China: Know yourself and know your enemy, you will win every war. Only when you know sublimation ink well, you can solve many problems in sublimation printing.
Sublimation inks are used by inkjet printers as it prepares to print on the sublimation paper. This causes the powdery dyes to heat up and vaporize into a gaseous form. These gaseous dyes diffuse and are allowed to permeate the printing surface, creating a photo quality print by gentle gradations. Once a color has been used, the roller of the printer is then reset for the next color to be printed. After all the colors have been printed , the substrate then makes a final pass over the printed image to give it a glossy outlook by lamination.
Dye sublimation inks are used to print reverse images on heat resistant sublimation paper for the final design. When they are about to be transferred to the polyester fabric, a heat press is used that operates at a temperature around 180⁰C to 210⁰C (375⁰F).
Sublimation ink can be used in many files like garments, banners, flags, mugs, plates, key rings and so on. But it also has it’s limitation.Sublimation inks are genuinely transparent by their natural composition making them use able only for light colored and white backgrounds and objects. Another limitation to sublimation printing is that they don’t sit well with fabrics containing pure cotton and surface that are non-porous and don’t have a coated layer of polyester.
Knowing the operating principle and limitation of the sublimation ink, i believe it will be easier for you to solve some problems in sublimation printing.