Digital Pigment Gains Ground on Analog Production

Pigment inks are the preferred ink choice of the textile printing industry. Reactive, acid, disperse, and vat ink systems all have their place, but the simple fact remains that pigment printing is number one.

In 2017, out of 32 billion square meters of textiles printed by whatever means, more than 25 billion square meters were printed using pigment ink technology. Of this figure, approximately 1.8 billion square meters were produced using digital printing, but with a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) in excess of 15%, the volume of digital textile printing is now expected to grow to more than 2.5 billion square meters by 2021.

Digital Printing with Pigments Is Set for Huge Growth

As far as digital printing is concerned, pigment printing is only just starting to grow, with reactive and dye-sublimation printing having previously dominated the digital textile printing sector. With the exception of direct-to-garment (DTG) printing, the early digital printhead technology for roll-to-roll print production was unable to cope with the higher solids content of pigment color at high speed. Therefore, the early application of digital technologies concentrated on the reactive and dye-sublimation printing sectors, where the water-based inks flowed readily, offering reliable print performance. However, these early teething troubles with pigments have now been overcome, and the current prospects for growth are exceptional.

Building on their success in the DTG pigment market, and leading the way forward for roll-to-roll pigment print technology, is Kornit Digital, which has produced a range of machinery and inks.

The Kornit Allegro, a single-process print system, offers an economical, high-speed roll-to-roll digital textile printing machine of industrial quality using non-allergenic, sustainable inks. The Allegro offers complete integration with web-to-print platforms; an eco-friendly, 100% waterless process; and a fully automated inline production process cycle with no need to pretreat fabrics prior to print. It is both versatile and economical and marks a turning point for textile manufacturers who increasingly are now choosing digital pigment print systems over traditional chemical dye systems and cumbersome analog processes.

Digital Pigment Textile Printing Is Gaining Ground on Analog Technologies

Let’s take a look at six further factors that are driving the marketplace to a digital future:

Price/Cost

Pigment ink systems by their very nature use a simple combination of chemicals and colorants which are cheaper to produce than other ink technologies. The actual process cost of pigment ink printing, which is less involved and technical than the others, brings the relative cost equation very much in favor of digital pigment inks.

Ease of Use

There is no doubt that printing with pigment inks is substantially less demanding than printing with other ink technologies. All the other ink technologies use complex color development and post-processing systems which are cumbersome, heavy in consumption of water and energy, and difficult to administer.

Of all the available inks, pigment ink is the only technology that gives the user an immediate product for approval. With pigment inks, there is no need for steaming, washing, and/or drying. Pigments are the only ink technology where a printed fabric can be immediately approved on the printing machine with safety and confidence.

Compatibility with All Fabrics

Of all the benefits of digital pigment ink printing, the most appealing is that it is suitable for all fabric types, whatever their fiber composition. All of the other dyestuffs are only compatible with a particular fiber group—reactive inks with cotton, disperse inks with polyester, and acid inks with silk—and any attempt to cross the boundaries into other fibers is not feasible.

Digital pigment inks don’t differentiate between fibers. They are suitable for linen, cotton, viscose, polyester, silk, nylon, and a variety of other fibers. Importantly, pigment inks are the only ink technology suited for non-homogeneous fiber blends such as polyester-cotton or viscose-nylon. This is because the pigment ink is deposited as a solid stain on the fabric and doesn’t rely on a chemical reaction to be fixed. Fiber-blended fabrics account for more than 60% of all fabrics printed worldwide, and pigment ink printing is the most favored process by manufacturers because of its adaptability across the fiber and fabric spectrum.

Non-Allergenic

Digital pigment inks are generally chemically inert and have none of the allergens associated with chemical dyestuffs such as reactive, dye sublimation, and dispersed. For this reason, it is the preferred process for baby and children’s wear which is printed using pigment inks, and where the attainment of the following 100 standards by OEKO-TEX is virtually mandatory:

Product Class I: Articles for babies and toddlers up to three years of age (underwear, rompers, clothing, bed linen, terry products. etc.).

Product Class II: Articles that are worn close to the skin (underwear, bed linen, T-shirts, socks, etc.).

Newly developed digital pigment inks from Kornit Digital achieve all these standards.

Energy Efficiency

The process for pigment ink printing is particularly economic in energy terms. Pigment ink printing only requires heat fixation and final finishing, whereas all the other inks require either HT Steaming, washing-off and drying, or the use of media such as paper to complete the print process. These extra processes are very costly in energy terms and it is true to say that, on average, pigment ink printing uses less than 15% of the energy used by other technologies.

Sustainability

Pigment ink printing has immaculate environmental credentials, for it uses very little water, discharges no significant process effluent, and uses much less energy. For example, it has been calculated that to print and finish a meter of reactive print, more than 50 liters of water will be used, most of it raised to its boiling point and then discharged as effluent into the local environment. Pigment printing uses little or no water, there is no effluent discharge, and its use of energy is minimal, offering a practical, sustainable solution for our environment.

Pigment ink printing with an addressable market size of 25 billion meters per year allows digital technologies to make a huge positive impact in an established sector of the world’s textile market. For an industry that is challenged by demand for ultra-fast delivery times and just-in-time manufacturing, the future is set for digital manufacturing. Pigment historically is the inkset of choice for the bulk of the textile industry, and with established credentials and performance standards, pigment appeals to the manufacturing community. For many textile companies, faced with numerous commercial issues and now forced to look to re-equip with the next generation of machinery, it’s a simple choice.

Digital pigment ink printing services the five main fabric printing sectors: Fashion and Apparel, Soft Signage, Home Décor, Sportswear, and Contract Décor, all of which are established markets for pigment printing. The consumer demands high-volume industrial print alongside speed, sustainability, efficiency, versatility, and flexible manufacturing.

The textile sector now faces new opportunities and challenges that must be addressed and overcome. Printing using pigment inks while utilizing a digital printing process offers companies large and small the commercial freedom they need to succeed.