Formulation Design And Performance Evaluation Of Gel Ink

In the global gel pen market,the production and sales volume of Chinese gel pens ranks first in the world.However,domestic production of gel inks is mainly focused on low-end and mid-range products.In the high-end products field,it is still difficult to make major breakthroughs over the years,resulting in the market's dependence on foreign high-quality inks being too serious,and the lack of high-quality gel ink preparation technology,the sales volume of China's gel pens in the global market has been declining year by year.Therefore,strengthening independent research and technological innovation is of great significance to China's transition to a strong pen-making country.This paper first reviews system composition,research and development status,preparation process and technical background of gel inks,and analyzes and puts forward the research and development focus of gel inks as a whole:In order to ensure a good intermittent writing of the gel pen,the gel ink must have excellent moisturizing properties;Writing ink fluency and writing lubricity are the specific requirements of people's comfort;The stability of long-term storage is fundamental to the viability of all ink technologies.There are many types of components added during the preparation of gelink and the action is highly targeted.Among them,Water-soluble alcohol is the main moisturizing solvent of gel ink,which directly affects the moisturizing performance of gel ink,and also determines the performance of intermittent writing of gel pen.The moisturizing ability of single alcohol solvent in deionized water and gel ink was investigated respectively and the effect of compound solvent on the moisturizing performance of neutral ink was studied.The results show: When the amount of the fixed solvent added is 30 wt.%,the gel ink prepared by the ratio of the polyethylene glycol 300 to the propylene glycol of 5:1 and the ratio of glycerin to ethylene glycol or propylene glycol of 2:1 has good moisturizing properties.The rheological properties of gel inks throughout the writing process of the gel pen,so that it has a significant impact on the fluency of writing.The effects of compound thickeners on the rheological parameters(viscosity,thixotropic index,thixotropic ring area)and writing fluency of gel inks were investigated by different ratios of different thickeners and analyzed their relevance.The results show: When the amount of fixed thickener added is1.5wt.%,the gel ink blended with DR-72 and TT-935,TT-615 and TT-935 ratio of 1:1 has better rheological properties and writing fluency.The lubricity of gel inks is a vital performance indicator in the development of high-grade inks,and the flowing ink acts like a lubricant in the refill.This experiment starts from the two aspects of film forming performance and rheological properties of gel ink,the main factors affecting the writinglubrication degree were investigated by means of the writing lubrication degree detector,and the correlation and optimization were carried out.The results show:When the pigment base ratio is 7:1,the color paste grinding time is 60 min and the color paste content is 30 %,the lubrication performance of gel ink prepared can be optimized.The stability of the gel ink includes the stability of the pigment paste and the finished ink.Comparison of experiments through stability studies,On the one hand,the effect of grinding time on the stability of the paste was investigated.On the other hand,the effects of the solid content of the pigment,the amount of thickener added and the p H value on the stability of the finished ink were investigated.The results show: The best grinding times of red,blue and black pigment pastes were 2 h,1.5 h and 1 h respectively;the optimum pigment solid contents of red,blue and black gel inks were 8.0 wt.%,7.0 wt.% and 6.0wt.% respectively.The optimum thickeners for red,blue and black gel inks are3.0 wt.%,1.5 wt.%,1.0 wt.% respectively;the optimum p H values for red,blue and black gel ink systems are 8.0~ 9.0.Through the research on the construction and performance optimization of gel ink system,the comprehensive performance of a gel ink prepared can reach the high-end foreign ink level,such as Japanese Mikuni ink.Among them,the lubricating properties of gel inks are particularly outstanding.