Preparation And Performance Analysis Of Surface Decorative Ceramic Inks Used For Ink-jet Printing

One of the printing processes that can be used to generate consistent high qualitymulticolor decorations is color ink jet printing. It has been developed as an universaltechniques for surface decorating of different materials. The digital ink-jet printing forceramic is a decoration technology of great potential, which has combined moderncomputer technology and ceramic decoration technology, and has much moreadvantages than the traditional ceramic decoration technology. For example, thedigital ink-jet printing technology can make the mass production feasible and efficient,and also make the design and preparation of complex and particular pattern bepracticable. The preparation of inks is the key point of the digital ceramic ink-jetprinting technology.Colorful ceramic inks which have low costs and good coloring effect wereprepared according to the traditional formulations of ceramic pigment in this work.The compositions of these inks contained organic metallic complexes which, afterdecomposition by calcination above1000℃, formed colored oxides or coloredcombinations with the material of the ceramic glaze. The organic complexescontained in these ceramic inks were mainly prepared by the direct reaction betweenmetallic inorganic salt and organic acid.The testing results showed that the series of ceramic inks prepared in this papersatisfied the requirements of drop-on-demand ceramic ink–jet printing and gotexcellent decorative effect for the glazed ceramic tile. These ceramic inks can beproduced with low cost and got high stability as well as long shelf life. They wouldnever block or abrade the nozzles of printer as they were homogeneous organic phase.The color generation mechanism of chrome-tin pink is studied by X-raydiffraction(XRD) and electron spin resonance spectroscopy(ESR). The results showedthat two of the main crystalline structures in the pigment are cassiterite (SnO2) andtin-sphene (CaSnSiO5), and the color effect was affected by the percentage oftin-sphene which was affected by the firing schedule. That, Cr4+entered the lattice oftin-sphene and partly replaced Sn4+generates red color in the decorated surface. The ink sets prepared in this work can be used to decorate glazed ceramic tile andthe idea developed can be used to prepare different sets of inks for decorating otherhigh temperature articles.