Digital fabric printing is a way of printing digital files directly onto fabric using ink jet based printers. It is a process which involves printing of an image, pattern or design directly from the computer onto a pre-treated fabric by an ink-jet printer. The ink-jet printer uses a printable graphical data file and reads the right color information by using a RGB system and then prints the desired color onto the fabric through myriad droplets of ink.

Digital printing brings advantages like lower sampling cost and time, higher resolution and lower wastages and pollution.

However it has some limitations too. The biggest ones are very high fixed, running and maintenance costs leading to high printing cost per meter of fabric. Other limitations include: fixed color gamut, lower depth and brilliancy.

This brings us to a question if is there is any alternative available which can give benefits of both digital and reactive printing?

Epricon is an eco-friendly super soft pigment printing package developed by Zydex for reactive replacement. Epricon allows customers to achieve reactive-like feel, fastness and depth along with excellent brightness. Our simple process eliminates washing and steaming processes and effluent treatment hassles associated with reactive printing. This not only saves overall cost but also results in higher production. Epricon package allows printing at finer meshes which can help achieve digital look prints with deeper shades and brighter colors at much lower costs.

This will offer advantages such as low fabric per meter cost as compared to digital, high production compared to digital and reactive printing, lower wastages and pollution, high brilliancy compared to digital and reactive printing, broader color options and easy color shade matching.

Chemical usage

The textile industry utilizes high amount of synthetic chemicals from fibre pre-treatment to fabric finishing making it the highest contributing sector in chemical pollution. The textile manufacturing typically uses around 2000 chemicals including dyes and other agents. Overall 25% of all types of chemical manufactured are used in textiles.

Water usage

In textile industry water is required in for every processing phase right from the fabric pre-treatment to finishing. Aside from these processes, there is an additional water utilization in cooling machines, boilers, steaming and cleaning. The average water usage of a medium sized textile manufacturing plant delivering around 8,000 kg fabric per day is roughly 1.6 million litres.

Energy consumption

A large amount of energy is required in a textile factory for machine operations, plant lightning and conditioning etc. It is evaluated that the annual fabric creation in 2008 was 60 billion kilograms which consumed 1.074 billion kWh of power and 6-9 trillion litres of water. It has been accounted that for manufacturing and consumer use, the total thermal and electric energy required are 18.8-23 MJ and 0.45-0.55 kWh per meter of fabric respectively.

Waste Production

The textile industry produces wastes in all three forms: gaseous, liquid and solids. Gaseous wastes come from volatilisation of spin finish agents in heat seating, exhaust gases from singeing, VOCs from desizing, dyeing and printing. Waste water includes metals, salt, surfactants, organic processing assistants, cationic materials, color, BOD, COD, sulphide, acidity/alkalinity, spent solvents from dyeing and suspended solids, urea, solvents, color, metals, heat, BOD, foam fomr printing. And solid waste includes packaging wastes, sized yarn, fiber waste, cleaning and processing waste etc from spinning, weaving, knitting and packaging.

Air Pollution

The secondary important pollutant in the textile industry after waste disposal is the emission of gases. The air emissions include dust and lint, oil fumes, acid vapor, solvent mists, odor and boiler exhausts. Emissions mainly come from boiler, high temperature ovens, preparation, carding, combing, fabric manufacturing, sizing compound, chlorine compound, disperse dyeing using carriers, sulphur dyeing aniline dyeing, resin finishing, heat setting of synthetic fabrics, storage tanks for commodity and chemicals and from treatment tanks and vessels.

Sustainability

The textile industry is concerned about the environmental and health impact arising from its manufacturing processes. For a healthier and more sustainable future, these challenges must be tackled using innovative, water-based chemistries that are not only environmentally friendly but durable and minimize the usage of scarce natural resources.

PIGMENT PRINTING

Pigments are generally colored, organic or inorganic solid powder. They are insoluble coloring matter mostly mineral origin which are used for the coloration of metal wood, stone, and textile material. These pigments does not have any affinity with fibers. They are used with the binder system for printing. The binder ensures that pigment particles remain on fibre by forming a film on the fabric surface. Long macromocules of binder together with binder and thickener forms a 3-dimensional links on heat fixation. In the fixation process, the printed fabrics are treated with heat cure at 150 °C. This can be done in heat press or hot mangle, or in industrial process, in curing oven. The heat activates the binder to adhere the pigments onto the surface of the cloth. Unlike dye applications, fabrics printed with pigments do not require washing after fixations.

Advantages of pigment printing system

• Easily applicable
• Less expensive
• Highly efficient because of the elimination of washing-off and other finishing processes
• No pollution

WATER BASED INKS

Water based inks uses water as a solvent. The ink seeps into the fabric and binds with the fibres leaving good fastness. Water based inks are the most widely used printing chemicals for apparel printing due to the multifarious utilities they offer. Below are some of the benefits which make water based inks supersede other printing chemicals

• Eco-friendly: One of the biggest reason why water based inks are extensively used is that they are free from harmful chemicals such as phthalates and plasticisers and are PVC free inks
• Sharp and softer prints: Water based inks sit deep into the fabric rather than merely sitting on top like plastisols thereby giving softer touch, thinner and shaper prints
• More breathable prints : Water from the ink gets evaporated on drying after printing, making the printed area more breathable compared to plastisols which form a layer of solvent on the surface making it less breathable

REACTIVE PRINTING

Reactive printing has been the mainstay of printing fabrics due to depth, brilliancy, soft feel and good crock and washing fastness. However reactive dyes require alkaline fixation, consuming large quantities of water for washing. Due to lack of 100% fixation dye contaminated water is produced. The final color depth and tone cannot be ascertained until the fabric is fully processed. This can be termed as blind printing which results into rejection due to color matching issues.

ECO FRIENDLY PRINTING SOLUTIONS FOR REACTIVE REPLACEMENT

Zydex offer the Epricon package which is based on eco-friendly water based pigment systems with depth, solidity, soft feel and excellent crock and washing fastness just like reactive printing. There is no effluent stream generated unlike reactive dying. Zydex also enables printers to move towards eliminating discharge printing processes without compromising on print quality and feel. Our rotary grade water based inks are designed for highest opacity, hand feel and washing fastness mimicking discharge printing thereby eliminating water washing step.

ADVANTAGES

• Replacement of Reactive will eliminate pollution
• Water saving up to 60%
• Higher productivity due to removal of multiple pre and post printing processes
• Being a direct printing technique it will reduce rejections

The market acceptance of the fabric depends on the fabric appeal (comfort). Fabrics are not just intermingling of yarns but they are product of precise manufacturing process where the processer faces hurdles in form of complex designs, shade variations, manufacturing defects, variation from standard etc.
Dyeing is a process of colouring fibres, yarns, or fabrics with either natural or synthetic dyes. This colouring is done by use of wet and dry processing techniques. In case of wet processing, textile material is coloured by bringing it in contact with the dye solution.

Some of the key parameters affecting the dyeing process are surface tension, capillary effect, surface unevenness, polar action etc.

Non-uniform patchy dyeing occurs due to:

• Substrate deformity
• Poor processing conditions
• Incorrect dye stuff selection

Hence to overcome this hurdles, dyeing & leveling chemicals like levelling agent, dispersing agents along with wetting agents are used.

Levelling agents

Levelling agent are chemical agent’s that work on the dye molecule and help in fixing the dye particles uniformly which enables to obtain uniform shade. Levelling agents are also termed as retarding agents or retarders.

Key role of levelling agent in dyeing:

Levelling agent are key for successful dyeing in situations where dye tends to rush on to the substrate giving non uniform dyeing.

Levelling agent competes with the dyes having affinity towards substrate. Hence they slow down the dye uptake of the substrate enabling production of uniform colour. Hence, they are also called retarding agents

Type of levelling agents

This surface active agents and may be anionic, cationic or non-ionic organic compounds. Accordingly, they are used for varied substrates as detailed below.

For Synthetic and its blends, generally the levelling agents are used that can withstand higher temp of dyeing, Say 130°C. These are the condensates of ethylene oxide and higher fatty alcohol, fatty amines.

Cloud point is very import while deciding levelling agent. The solubility of levelling agents in water reduces with increase in temperature and at a certain temperature they become insoluble. This temperature is called cloud point.

Zydex manufactures single component multi-functional product “Zycol DL” which is next generation surface active material for improving dispersing & levelling action of disperse dyes on substrates like polyester fibres, yarns and fabrics.

This new chemistry enables better dispersion of disperse dyes in water at high temperature.
Moreover the product has high cloud point which enables better levelling and brightness

Wetting agents

Another important auxiliary used in dyeing are wetting agents. Wetting agents are basically surfactants that lower the surface tension of a liquid, allowing easier spreading, and lower the interfacial tension between two liquids.

Each wetting agent molecule has a hydrophilic (water-loving) head a hydrophobic (water-hating) tail.

They help in accelerating the wet ability of material in solution & thus help in easy penetration of dyes into substrate.

Zydex Industries manufactures low and high molecular weight polymeric surfactant based wetting agents that provide excellent cleaning action for waxes and oils from cotton as well polyester surface. The wetting agents make the fiber surface clean and help improve the solidity of reactive and disperse dyeing.

What is Sizing?

Production of ‘quality’ fabric economically and efficiently is key aim of any textile company.Sizing is an intermediate protective process which is done to prepare the yarn for the weaving process. The process of applying a protective adhesive (synthetic/ natural) coating upon the yarns surface is called sizing. This adhesive can be single shot sizing chemical or a blend of multiple chemicals to achieve desired properties.

Advantages of Warp Yarn Sizing in Weaving:

Below are the key advantages of warp yarn sizing prior to weaving.

1. To bind the yarn by adhering the fibers together and hence improve yarn strength.
2. To cover outer yarn surface for improving abrasion resistance of the warp yarn.
3. To lubricate the yarn surface for reducing friction during weaving process by preventing inter yarn entanglement and surface abrasion. This reduction of friction helps to keep the yarn intact and hence better fabric quality.

Sizing Process in nutshell:

1. Yarn Sizing is carried out by passing the warp yarn sheet through size box containing the pre-prepared sizing chemical. The warp sheet is passed through tension roller, immersion roller, sizing roller and squeezing roller respectively in sow box. This is followed by subjecting the yarn sheet to drying cylinders heated through steam where the water is evaporated from yarn surface and sizing chemical forms a film on same.

2. Next the yarn sheet is passed over the after waxing roller to coat the sizing chemical film with extra lubricants for hairiness control and ease of weaving.

3. After drying and after waxing, the warp sheet is split so that the yarns regain their individual identity before they are wound on the weaver’s beam.

4. Splitting is required because warp sheet coming out of the drying section adhere to each other depending on the efficiency of the pre-drying section. Chromium coated Lease rods split the warp sheet in a systematic manner so that the yarns which are stuck together by dried size are separated.

5. After the splitting, the warp sheet is finally wound on the weaver’s beam. The warp sheet passes through an adjustable reed which can be expanded or collapsed based on the width of the beam.

Zydex had been pioneer in field of textile sizing. We have a wide range of products for sizing of spun yarn as well as filament yarns.

Zydex had been at the forefront of innovation for polyester sizing products. Today, Zydex has the leadership position in hot water dispersible polyester resin technology for sizing and weaving of polyester multi filament yarn on high speed weaving machines. This polyester based sizing chemicals have been engineered to exactly replace acrylic size and work at lower SPU but more importantly use the same desizing recipe with caustic and soap for desizing with excellent results. Our products form nano-level dispersion that results in outstanding filament-to-filament bonding.

In a similar way Zydex has been catering the spun sizing industry by providing modified thin boiling starches and additives. Along with sizing chemicals, Zydex also offers a complete range of eco-friendly textile printing solutions, which give excellent functional and aesthetic properties to finished fabrics and garments. For more information on our polyester sizing products and textile printing solutions,
call: 1800-3000-7144

Pigments are generally colored, organic or inorganic solid powder. They are insoluble coloring matter mostly mineral origin which are used for the coloration of metal wood, stone, and textile material. These pigments does not have any affinity with fibers. They are used with the binder system for printing.The binder ensures that pigment particles remain on fibre by forming a film on the fabric surface. Long macromocules of binder together with binder and thickener forms a 3-dimensional links on heat fixation. In the fixation process, the printed fabrics are treated with heat cure at 150 °C. This can be done in heat press or hot mangle, or in industrial process, in curing oven. The heat activates the binder to adhere the pigments onto the surface of the cloth. Unlike dye applications, fabrics printed with pigments do not require washing after fixations.

Advantages:

• Easily applicable
• Less expensive
• Highly efficient because of the elimination of washing-off and other finishing processes
• No pollution

Zydex presents a complete range of fabric printing solutions by offering a variety of innovative products in entire value chain processes right from grey selection to finishing. Our wide range of textile pigment printing inks allow customers to achieve reactive-like feel and color fastness without the effluent management hassles associated with reactive/ procion printing. This helps our customers to achieve higher production efficiency at minimum cost.

Eco friendly printing solutions for reactive and discharge replacement

Reactive/ Procion printing has been the mainstay of printing fabrics due to depth, brilliancy, soft feel and good crock and washing fastness. However reactive dyes require alkaline fixation, consuming large quantities of water for washing. Due to lack of 100% fixation dye contaminated water is produced. The final color depth and tone cannot be ascertained until the fabric is fully processed. This can be termed as blind printing which results into rejection due to color matching issues.

EPRICON

Epricon package is based on eco-friendly pigment systems with matching depth, solidity, soft feel and excellent crock and washing fastness. There is no effluent stream generated unlike reactive dying. Zydex uses pvc free inks and enables printers to move towards eliminating discharge printing processes without compromising on print quality and feel. Our rotary grade whites and clear inks are designed for highest opacity, hand feel and washing fastness mimicking discharge printing thereby eliminating water washing step.

WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES?

• Replacement of Procion/ Discharge will eliminate pollution
• It will lead to higher productivity due to removal of multiple pre and post printing processes
• Being a direct printing technique it will reduce rejections

Textiles, a basic human need has always been a hotspot for innovation. A major modern concern of producers as well as environment groups has been the fact that textile coloring processes involve dyes. The discharge processes have a damaging effect on the environment and involve consumption of large volumes of water. Furthermore, they are toxic to human health.

Acting on these concerns, Zydex is pioneering printing technologies that are free of dyes and discharge processes without compromising the feel and fastness standards typical of dyed prints.

EPRICON – PIGMENT BASED SOLUTIONS FOR REACTIVE REPLACEMENT

Reactive printing has been the mainstay of coloring fabrics due to the exceptional depth, feel and fastness properties imparted. It involves using dying agents, chromophoric molecules with reactive groups, that react permanently to the fabric. Reactive printing does not come without drawbacks though. Reactive dyes require alkaline fixation baths consuming large quantities of water yet do not fully fix resulting in generation of excess dye contaminated water and dye wastage. Further, the final color development cannot be ascertained until the fabric undergoes post processing thus essentially printing “blind”.

Pigment printing on the other hand involves fixing pigments onto the fabric using polymeric binders. The process involves preparing pigment pastes consisting of pigments, binder, thickeners and certain enhancing additives. This paste is then printed onto the fabrics and cured. There are no post processing steps and the water consumption is minimized to paste preparation and evaporated away during curing. There is no effluent stream generated unlike reactive dying.

There have been several attempts to replace reactive printing with pigment based solutions but the challenge of obtaining feel and fastness standards still remains. Zydex, through its Epricon package, has successfully overcome these hurdles in pigment printing. With wet rub and wash standards like reactive and zero hand feel, Zydex is enabling a shift for printers to move towards zero water discharge printing processes without compromising on print quality. Our rotary grade ready white inks are designed for highest opacity and hand feel standards allowing for replacement of discharge printing eliminating water usage involved.

K2 INKS – PVC-FREE WATER BASED GARMENT PRINTING INKS

Zydex is a global pioneer in the shift away from PVC Plastisol based screen printing ink towards water-based technology. With increasing environmental and health concerns around the usage of PVC and plasticizers, there was a need to shift towards more eco-friendly and non-toxic platforms which called for the usage of PVC free inks . With K2 series of water based printing ink, Zydex enables manual and machine printing with the runnability and ease of plastisol and excellent hand feel and fastness standards. Typical inks compromise between hand feel and wet rub standards. Zydex polymer technology allows maximum wet rub standards without losing the hand feel allowing deep color printing with excellent durability.