Study On The Performances Of Matte Coated Paper For Ink-jet Printing

Ink-jet printing was a widely used print mode in non-contact printing technology. As image quality improves, there was a demand for ink-jet paper with improvement, so that the ink-jet printed image may resemble a perfect image.The traditional and modern printing quality evaluation methods were combined in this paper. Ink-jet printing quality depended on two important parameters—image color rendering and sharpness. According to the parameters, Ink-jet printed image reproduction index (IRI) was propounded. The influences of paper performances on printing quality were analyzed. The influences of the silica and ground calcium carbonate pigments on paper performances and printability were analyzed by means of the quality evaluation system.Several conclusions were drawn from the research as follows:The quality of ink-jet paper could be evaluated by ink-jet image reproduction index. The closer the value of IRI was to 1, the better the quality of printing. The influences of paper absorption, opacity and brightness on print quality were prominent. The high image sharpness and color reproduction could be obtained by the matte coated paper with quick absorbency, high opacity and brightness.High printing quality could be achieved by the silica pigments with small particle, high purity and high brightness. However, it was known to us all that the addition of the ground calcium carbonate to the silica also obtained higher print quality than to silica with the big particle and low purity, low brightness. Also, when the ratio of silica to ground calcium carbonate was 80 to 20, the silica with big particle and high purity could obtain high printing quality. The high print quality could be obtained by the addition of the ground calcium carbonate with small particle and high brightness to the silica.Finally, the ink-jet paper makers could be helped to improve the coating performances according to the printing demand by the results of this paper. Coating pigments could be chosen rationally and economically.