A STUDY OF THE FACTORS AFFECTING THE COLOUR YIELD OF

AN INK-JET PRINTED COTTON FABRIC

C.W.M. Yuen, S.K.A. Ku, P.S. Choi and C.W. Kan*
Institute of Textiles and Clothing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom,
Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China
Tel.: (852) 2766 6443, Fax: (852) 2773 1432
E-mail: cwkan1@netvigator.com
ABSTRACT
Optimum conditions involving the contents of the pretreatment print paste and the steaming
time for ink-jet printing were newly developed through orthogonal analysis. Cotton fabric
treated under the newly developed optimum conditions could achieve a high colour yield for
ink-jet printing similar to that of the commercially pretreated cotton fabric available in the
market. The results are discussed thoroughly in this paper.
Keywords:
1.

Ink-jet printing, pretreatment print paste, sodium alginate, sodium bicarbonate,

urea and steaming time

INTRODUCTION

In recent years, there has been increasing interest in the application of ink-jet printing in the
textile market. The technique of ink-jet printing offers benefits such as speed, flexibility,
creativity, cleanliness, competitiveness and eco-friendliness (Gupta 2001, van Parys 2002).
However, the production process of ink-jet printing for cotton fabric with reactive dye is
different from that of the conventional printing process (Aston et al. 1993, Schulz 2002).
In the conventional textile printing of cotton fabric, the reactive dye is applied with alkali and
other chemicals in the form of a print paste. The print is then normally steamed to fix the dye
onto the cotton fabric and then washed thoroughly to remove any unreacted dye, chemicals
and thickener. However, due to the requirement for purity and the specific conductivity
requirements for ink-jet printing (Aston et al. 1993, Siemensmeyer et al. 1999, Schulz 2002,
Zhou and Li 2002), none of the conventional printing chemicals such as alkali, urea and
sodium alginate thickener can be directly incorporated into the ink formulation. As a result,
cotton fabric needs to be pretreated with the printing chemicals used in conventional textile
printing. The chemicals necessary for fixing reactive dye should be padded onto the cotton
fabric prior to the stage of ink-jet printing.
For the ink-jet printing of cotton fabric with reactive dyes, the contents of the pretreatment
print paste (i.e. alginate, urea and alkali) and the steaming time after ink-jet printing, are the
main factors affecting the final colour yield of the printed cotton fabric (Aston et al. 1993).
Hence, the findings from this study can provide a better understanding of the effect of
pretreatment print paste and steaming time on the colour yield of ink-jet printed cotton fabric.
Furthermore, the optimum conditions for the printing process can also be determined.
Most of the commercially pretreated cotton fabrics available in the market for ink-jet printing
have been padded with pretreatment print paste. However, for commercial reasons, the
contents of this paste are not disclosed, resulting in very high prices for this type of fabric.
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Hence, this study of the recipe of the pretreatment print paste with respect to the final colour
yield can help industries develop their own recipes for making pretreatment print pastes for
use in ink-jet printing.
2.

EXPERIMENTAL

2.1

Fabric

One hundred per cent singed, desized, scoured and bleached cotton plain weave fabric of
136g/m2 with 133 ends/inch (40s) and 72 picks/inch (40s) was used in this study. A
commercially pretreated cotton fabric with the same fabric specifications was adopted as the
control fabric.
2.2

Preparation of Pretreatment Print Paste

Unless otherwise stated, all of the chemicals used were of A.R. grade. A stock alginate was
prepared by dissolving 50g of sodium alginate in 950ml of deionized water. The amount of
alginate used in the pretreatment print paste was measured directly from the stock alginate.
Inside the pretreatment print paste, suitable amounts of urea and sodium bicarbonate
(NaHCO3) were also added. In order to achieve the optimum condition, a L9(3)4 orthogonal
analysis was used with the details shown in Tables 1 and 2. The pretreatment print pastes
were prepared in accordance with the requirements stated in Table 2 and made up to the final
weight of 200g with deionized water. The pH value of the pretreatment print pastes was kept
at 9-10.
Table 1: Factors and levels used in orthogonal analysis
Factor
Level
I
II
III

Pretreatment print paste gradient

Alginate
Urea
NaHCO3
50g
5g
2g
100g
10g
4g
150g
20g
8g

Post-treatment
Steaming time
3 min
5 min
10 min

Table 2: Experimental arrangement

Test Run
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

Pretreatment print paste gradient

Alginate
Urea
NaHCO3
I
I
I
I
II
II
I
III
III
II
I
II
II
II
III
II
III
I
III
I
III
III
II
I
III
III
II

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44

Post-treatment
Steaming time
I
II
III
III
I
II
II
III
I

2.3

Pretreatment of Fabric

The pretreatment print paste was padded onto the cotton fabric using a padding machine
(Labortex Co. Ltd) with a pressure of 2.6 kg/m2 and a padding speed of 2.5 rpm until a pickup of 80% was achieved. The pretreated fabrics were dried in the oven at 80C and then
conditioned before undergoing ink-jet printing.
2.4

Ink-jet Printing and After-treatment

The model of ink-jet printer was Mimaki Tx2-1600 (Mimaki Engineering Co., Ltd.), a piezo
electric drop-on demand machine using eight refillable colour cartiridges. Four commercially
available reactive dyes (TianLi Modern Office Articles (Shanghai) Co., Ltd.), with the
colours of Cyan (C), Magenta (M), Yellow (Y) and Black (K), were used directly without
further purification. A pattern of a square 8cm x 8cm in size was printed for each colour
(cyan, magenta, yellow and black) using DGS (Dua Graphic Systems) software and printing
operations on fabric were commenced by using TexPrint software with 360dpi x 360dpi for
easy comparison. The printed colour can be represented by the spot colour and printed from
each cartridge onto the fabric. After undergoing ink-jet printing, the printed fabrics were airdried and then steamed with superheated steam at 110C to fix the colour. The steaming time
was in accordance with the experimental arrangement listed in Table 2. The steamed fabrics
were finally washed in 10g/l of nonionic detergent until all of unreacted dyes and chemicals
had been removed.
2.5

Measurements of Colour Yield

The printed fabrics were first conditioned and the colour yield was then measured by a
Macbeth Colour Eye 7000A spectrophotometer under illuminant D65. In this study, the
summation of K/S, i.e. K/S(sum), over the wavelength interval within the visible spectrum was
calculated. The K/S values from wavelengths of 400nm to 700nm with intervals of 20nm
were summed and calculated according to Equation (1). The higher the K/S(sum) value, the
greater the uptake of dye, resulting in a better colour yield.
K (1 R ) 2
=
S
2R

------------ (1)

where K = absorption coefficient, depending on the concentration of the colorant

S = scattering coefficient, caused by the dyed substrate
R = reflectance of the coloured sample

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3.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The optimum conditions for the pretreatment print pastes and steaming time can be obtained
by means of the orthogonal analysis, with the results summarized in Table 3.
Table 3: Orthogonal table for the optimization of each colour
Test Run
Alginate
I
I
I
II
II
II
III
III
III

Substrate
Urea
I
II
III
I
II
III
I
II
III

NaHCO3
I
II
III
II
III
I
III
I
II

236.60
249.09
273.74
37.14

256.97
279.40
223.06
56.34

246.20
250.56
262.67
16.47

255.64
256.39
247.40
8.99

Magenta (M)
I
II
III
Different

157.18
169.95
209.09
51.91

197.33
202.51
136.38
66.13

162.54
175.72
197.96
35.42

172.23
199.14
164.85
34.29

Yellow (Y)
I
II
III
Different

138.47
169.39
187.42
48.95

173.11
190.36
131.81
59.15

149.46
168.81
177.01
27.55

167.83
175.33
152.12
23.21

Black (K)
I
II
III
Different

423.51
472.85
5S31.62
108.11

523.97
524.22
379.79
144.43

430.35
475.09
522.54
92.19

480.50
502.98
444.50
58.48

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Cyan (C)
I
II
III
Different

Post-treatment
Steaming time
I
II
III
III
I
II
II
III
I

Dye uptake (K/S)

C

78.66
87.84
70.10
81.53
95.79
71.77
96.78
95.77
81.19

51.02
66.11
40.05
57.21
68.81
43.93
89.10
67.59
52.40

44.53
59.23
34.71
56.05
69.77
43.57
72.53
61.36
53.53

143.45
165.94
114.12
162.81
190.71
119.33
217.71
167.57
146.34

The figures in bold face are those with the greatest value in the levels of different factors
used.
3.1

Effect of Sodium Alginate on the Pretreatment Print Paste

Sodium alginate is a very important thickener for print pastes in textile printing because of its
ready solubility and excellent stability even after high-temperature fixation treatments. It is
especially important in the preparation of print pastes for reactive dyes as it interacts with
reactive dyes to only a very limited degree. This is mainly due to the absence of primary
hydroxyl groups in sodium alginate and to the repulsion of dye anions by the ionized
carboxyl groups of the polymer under alkaline conditions (pH ~ 9-10) (Miles 1994(a)). Hence,

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sodium alginate was used in the present study and its effect on the yield of different colours is
shown in Figure 1.

600

K/S value

500
400

Cyan
Magenta
Yellow
Black

300
200
100
0
50

100

150

Amount of Alginate used (g)

Figure 1: Effect of the amount of sodium alginate used on the yield of different colours
Figure 1 clearly shows that Black had the best colour yield followed by Cyan, Magenta and
Yellow. When the amount of sodium alginate used in the pretreatment print paste was
increased, the colour yields of the printed fabrics were enhanced correspondingly. Thus, it
can be concluded that sodium alginate increases the colour yield in ink-jet printing. In the
pretreatment print paste, sodium alginate serves as an inhibitor of migration in the printing
paste to control the sharpness of borders of the final ink-jet printed pattern (Schneider 2002,
Achwal 2002). During the steaming process, steam condenses onto the film of sodium
alginate, which swells up and acts as a miniature dyebath on the surface of the fibre. The dye
then dissolves and diffuses through the swollen alginate film to reach the surface of the fibre.
Although the condensed steam might cause the outlines to bleed due to the presence of urea
in the pretreatment print paste, sodium alginate can reduce the effect of bleeding. On the
other hand, sodium alginate can control the penetration of the dye into the fabric (Schulz
2002, Schneider 2002). When the concentration of sodium alginate is too high, the fixation
yield can be reduced. One reason is that a thick film of alginate might act as a diffusion
barrier for the dye, so that less dye becomes fixed on the fibre itself (Schulz 2002).
Furthermore, when the amount of sodium alginate is increased to 200g, the viscosity becomes
too great, thereby making it difficult to pad the pretreatment print paste on the fabric. As
penetration is viscosity-dependent, it is necessary to find a carefully balanced compromise
between penetration and diffusion (Miles 1994(a), Schneider 2002).
3.2

Effect of Sodium Bicarbonate on the Pretreatment Print Paste

As in the dyeing process, alkali is used in the printing process to develop colours of all shades
(Miles 1994(a), Achwal 2002). The presence of alkali is essential to produce ionization in
accessible cellulose hydroxyl groups, which can then react with the reactive dyes in the
fixation stage. Sodium bicarbonate has been the preferred alkali because it is cheap and can
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give sufficient pretreatment print paste stability with most reactive dyes available in the
market (Miles 1994(a)). During steaming, carbon dioxide is lost from sodium bicarbonate and
the ionization of cellulose is increased, which promotes the interaction between the dye and
fibre in the fixation stage.

600

K/S value

500
400

Cyan
Magenta
Yellow
Black

300
200
100
0
2

Amount of NaHCO3 used (g)

Figure 2: Effect of the amount of sodium bicarbonate used on the yield of different colours
From Figure 2, it was also noted that Black had the best colour yield followed by Cyan,
Magenta and Yellow. However, the effects of Cyan, Magenta and Yellow were not
significant when compared with Black. Generally speaking, when the amount of the sodium
bicarbonate used in the pretreatment print paste was increased, the colour yields of the
printed fabrics increased.
3.3

Effect of Urea on the Pretreatment Print Paste

Urea is essential in the pretreatment print paste because during the steaming process,
particularly during the use of superheated steam right after the fabric undergoes ink-jet
printing, it is mainly used to swell the cotton fibres so that the dye can rapidly penetrate the
fibres (Achwal 2002, Chen 2002). The urea acts as a solvent for the reactive dye as it
performs as a moisture-absorbing agent in the pretreatment print paste to increase the
moisture regained during the steaming process. Thus, the urea accelerates the migration of
dye from the thickener film, i.e. sodium alginate, into the cotton fibre. The urea also reduces
the yellowing of cotton under hot, dry alkaline conditions (Miles 1994(a), Chen 2002).

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48

600

K/S value

500
400

Cyan
Magenta
Yellow
Black

300
200
100
0
5

10

15

20

Amount of urea used (g)

Figure 3: Effect of the amount of urea used on the yield of different colours
Figure 3 shows the yield of different colours under the influence of various amounts of urea
used in the pretreatment print paste. The results showed that 10g of urea in the pretreatment
print paste could apparently deepen the colour of the ink-jet printed cotton fabric to achieve a
maximum colour yield. When compared, Black obviously showed the greatest yield in colour,
followed by Cyan, Magenta and, finally, Yellow. The order of effect was similar to that of the
results reported previously (Chen 2002). Interestingly, it can be noted from Figure 3 that
when the amount of urea used in the pretreatment print paste was more than 10g, the colour
yield of the ink-jet printed fabrics would decrease. When the amount of urea used was further
increased to 20g, the colour yield of the ink-jet printed fabric dropped significantly, and was
even paler than when 5g of urea was used. Such a drop in colour yield with respect to the
increasing amounts of urea used in the pretreatment print paste might be due to the increase
in moisture regained by the fibres during the steaming process. Owing to its hygroscopic
nature, urea was used as a moisture-absorbing agent during the steaming process. Using a
large amount of urea in the pretreatment print paste can enhance the absorption of moisture
and also cause the hydrolysis of reactive dye during the steaming process.
3.4

Effect of Steaming Time on the After-treatment Phase

Steam serves as a convenient source of both water and heat, as it can be transferred rapidly
and uniformly over the surface areas of ink-jet printed cotton fabrics. Superheated steam is
used because it heats more quickly, has a shorter fixation time and results in fewer colours
being spread (Miles 1994(b)).

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49

600

K/S value

500
400

Cyan
Magenta
Yellow
Black

300
200
100
0
3

8
Steaming time (min.)

Figure 4: Effect of steaming time on the yield of different colours

Figure 4 reflects the effect of steaming time on the yield of different ink-jet printed colours
on the cotton fabric. Black showed the best colour yield, followed by Cyan, Magenta and
Yellow, with the same sequence shown in the previous sections. It was noted that the
optimum K/S values of all of the colours were obtained at a steaming time of 5 minutes.
However, when the steaming time was extended to more than 5 minutes, the colour yield of
the ink-jet printed fabrics would be reduced by different degrees. The reduction in the yield
of colour at prolonged steaming times might be the combined effect of both the chemicals
and steaming time used. In response to prolonged steaming times at high temperatures, i.e.
110C, urea will decompose, producing ammonia and biuret-type products inside the
steaming chamber (Miles 1994(b)). Owing to the reaction of reactive dyes with ammonia and
the loss of alkali, a lower colour yield will be obtained under these conditions. Furthermore, a
prolonged steaming time would also provide sufficient moisture for the moisture-absorbing
agent, i.e. urea, to absorb. As a result of the combined effect, hydrolysis might occur and
colour yield might be reduced.
3.5

Newly Developed Optimum Conditions

Orthogonal analysis is a useful and simple technique for analysing the process variables or
factors involved in a production process. Previous studies (Sui et al. 1994, Yeung et al. 1997,
Lam and Cheng 1998) have shown that it can provide a simple and convenient way of
determining the optimum condition and level of importance of different factors in a
production process.
After considering the results obtained from the orthogonal analysis as shown in Table 3, it
was concluded that all of the four factors used, namely, sodium alginate, urea, sodium
bicarbonate and steaming time could affect the K/S value by having a different effect on the
final colour yield. However, the level of importance based on the orthogonal analysis was in
the order of urea > sodium alginate > sodium bicarbonate > steaming time. Based on the
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results of the orthogonal analysis, it was concluded that the newly developed optimum
conditions for pretreatment print paste and steaming time are sodium alginate = 150g, urea =
10g, sodium hydrogen carbonate = 8g and steaming time = 5 minutes.
In order to verify the accuracy of the newly developed optimum conditions, further
experiments were conducted using commercially pretreated fabric as the control fabric. The
results are shown in Table 4.
Table 4: Colour yield of fabric treated under the newly developed optimum conditions
Colour
Control fabric
Treated fabric

Cyan
100.25
110.75

Magenta
90.28
95.66

Yellow
77.16
90.30

Black
276.25
260.88

The results shown in Table 4 demonstrated clearly that the cotton fabric treated under the
newly developed optimum conditions had the best colour yield when compared with those
shown in Table 3. Furthermore, the treated cotton fabric had a better final colour yield for
Cyan, Magenta and Yellow when compared with the control fabric. Although the control
fabric had a better colour yield for Black than the treated fabric, the difference was not great.
It seems that the type of reactive dye used for the Black colour might have been different
from that used for the other three colours. This could be because different reactive dyes will
have various properties of reactivity and fixation; thus, one working condition normally could
not be applied to all types of reactive dyes (Shore 1995). On the whole, the newly developed
optimum condition could still enhance the treated cotton fabric so that a high colour yield is
achieved, similar to that of commercially pretreated fabric.
4.

CONCLUSION

Optimum conditions for the contents of pretreatment print paste and steaming time to obtain
the maximum colour yield were newly developed and verified. It was confirmed that the final
colour yield of cotton fabric treated under the newly developed optimum conditions is
competitive with that of the commercially pretreated cotton fabric available in the market.
However, further research should be conducted to study the effect of pretreatment print paste
and steaming time on individual reactive dyes.
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